azderoth

They're slow moving. They walk like somnambulists, slow and with a hint of uncertainty--as if they are unsure who they are. They can be mistaken for normal people, it's a mistake that Barbara's brother certainly won't forget. They are dead and they are going to eat you.

The zombie film, what we today think of as zombies, coalesced in this movie. All of the traits are here. The bleakness, the stark naturalism (in this movie offset by an absurd, illogical, event), the violence. One thing that Night of the Living Dead gets right is it pulls off the horror of a family disintegrating quite well. Actually thats kind of what this movie is about. It's about social disintegration in times of chaos. If the people in the house would have pulled together, then the zombies wouldn't have been as much of a problem. It's the shock of an apparently impossible act, it's the shock of your dead mother getting up to kill you, that wounds.

Forget plot. Dispel any notions of linear progression. This is animation simply for the purpose of animation, and it sort of works. This does have a few problems however--I felt it was about ten minutes too long. And the shades of black and white do become a little tedious after awhile (though there is alleviation in the strategic use of colors throughout).

One of the attributes of the movie, the one that could either draw viewers in or send them running, is its tendency to drift in a kind of dream-logic (I feel that animation works well with that sort of surrealistic play) with no regard towards traditional structure. The character design is simple, yet oddly emotive, and the music is dreamy enough to get lost in.

This movie makes me wonder what the next step in these kinds of animation projects is going to be.

The Descent proves to me that the idea, or subject, of a movie doesn't always have to be interesting in itself. Sometimes it is the presentation that matters. Quite simply The Descent is about some women who go into a cave. Hijinks soon follow. The A.P.W. (read: All Powerful Writer) is tempted to say that The Descent is nothing original--that the A.P.W has seen movies like it before, years ago, when scary movies weren't afraid to show consequence and a good fright for a fear of appearing "unsophisticated". But it is this return to basic scare tactics that makes The Descent work. The director uses misdirection, develops characters, shocks, and unfolds events like a pro. The creatures too (I thought of them as subhumanoids) are well constructed--even if couldn't believe that they were unaware of fire, or heavy breathing, on a few occasions. The A.P.W. also had a little difficulty believing that a character could throw a dangerous tool with such lethality in a cave with zero visibility.

But these leaps of cinematic logic are, in a way, what keep this movie entertaining. The director, Neil Marshall, knows when to push the movie into more excessively stylistic territory without making it seem forced. In the end The Descent is an excellent movie, if somewhat unoriginal.