Saturday, March 8, 2008
By: MrDisgusting
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UPDATE: We've been informed that this is a coverage report from an older draft and there will be re-writes... B-D reader 'Emmet K' stumbled upon something that will cause insanity among fans of Neil Marshall's The Descent. Inside you'll find a studios coverage report for Pathe's The De2cent. A coverage report is a studio execs full notes on the screenplay - and is basically a detailed review. This reader recommends it, so hopefully someone picks it up for US (since Lionsgate isn't involved). Also note, there are many (MAJOR) spoilers, so read on at your own risk!
TITLE: THE DESCENT 2
AUTHOR: James Watkins
DIRECTOR: Jon Harris
DRAFT: January 2008
PAGES: 90
READER: XXXXX
COMMENTS SUMMARY: Workable little genre pic. Cheap, to be sure, but lean and gory. It segues nicely from the original (which made $26 million in the US) and of course leaves the ending wide open for the next installment. The best thing about THE DESCENT 2 is that it knows exactly what it is: a derivative disgusto-fest that puts characters into horrifying situations, usually alone, in the dark, trapped in a cave, about to be eaten. THE DESCENT 2 doesn't put on airs, and doesn't overreach. Like the original, it is tightly written, wasting little time on characterizations, and appealing immediately and forcefully to the gut. Imagine hanging upside down, in the dark, powerless, as ‘crawlers' sniff you out and start eating you. Yeah. That's what people are paying to see these days. It's not the cinematic equivalent of a roller coaster, but one of those short, fast rides that makes your stomach flip over, and leaves you grossed out but weirdly exhilarated. CONSIDER. Good DVD potential.
SYNOPSIS:
OPEN in the Appalachian mountains, just where the original film ended. We hear the voicemail messages of the six girls who went spelunking in the caves there and were never heard from again. A mountain RANGER's voice messages reveals that the girls are missing. Did they forget to call in? Or are they in trouble? CUT TO the rescue team outside the Boreham Caverns: there's DAN, the leader, with GREG, 22, and CATH, 27, working as volunteers. They head down into the caves, noting the dangerous outcroppings and sheer rockfaces. They emerge from the cave with no clues, glowering at Chief Deputy VAINES, who is pressured to get some kind of search party going. But where to start?
Suddenly, a woman staggers into the window of a roadhouse café, smearing it with blood. This is SARAH, one of the cavers! She collapses and is taken to the hospital, where Vaines and his younger partner, the female RIOS, try to question her. Rios tries the soft touch, but Sarah is clearly traumatized, hearing ‘click' sounds everywhere, fearing for her life ... and unable or unwilling to talk. Believing that Sarah's memory is the key to finding the others, Vaines finally takes over and decides to take Sarah with them into the caves. Her memory will certainly be jogged, and maybe she can help them locate the other lost girls before time runs out.
Sarah allows herself to be taken to the mines. She sits there, numb, totally shut down. Vaines, Rios, Dan, Greg, and Cath accompany her down in the creaky elevator, where Sarah gets more and more nervous. Realizing where she is going, she finally lashes out, screaming, "Don't go down! There's something down there!" but it's too late - they are halfway down into the caves. Sarah is restrained. They reach the bottom and begin looking for the lost girls as Sarah's fear becomes nearly overwhelming. Rios tries to soothe her, but down in the dark caves, with collapsing ceilings, drips and clicks and echoes everywhere ... it's very creepy. Dan watches Sarah's reaction and regrets allowing Vaines to bring her down.
Suddenly the group comes upon a horse skeleton on the floor. Claw marks on the walls. Sarah shrinks in fear. They then find a snaplight and boot - from a caver! When Cath shouts out for the girls, Sarah tries to smother her into silence. She admits that there are "creatures" down there. Then they find the body of a girl (REBECCA from the first film). Half of her face is missing; a rat slips out of her mouth. Should Sarah be considered a suspect?
The radios stop working, and the group is clearly lost. Dan and Cath veer off alone. When Cath is trapped after a ceiling collapse, Dan tries to calm her and promises to return, but he wonders if he'll ever see her again. He comes upon BETH's (from first film) smashed face while several feet away, Rios sees Holly's body, eviscerated. Dan can't believe Sarah would do that, and Rios points out the savageness of the wounds. Sarah dashes off alone into one of the honeycomb tunnels. In the distance, Greg screams. Sarah turns off her flashlight and ducks down, quiet, then traces a drip of water. Then Dan and Rios find the cavers' camcorder, which plays back the scenes of their laughter and fun. The replay shows them entering this very spot of the cave, seeing the animals' bones. Then the shadow of a CRAWLER is visible, and as Rios struggles to rewind it, a Crawler appears right before them, hisses ... and Rios drops the camcorder. As Dan fumbles about the sudden darkness for it, Sarah grabs Rios and covers her mouth just as a
Crawler appears, sniffing around. Sarah refuses to warn Dan. Dan finds the camera and lifts its
light just in time to see Sarah holding Rios - and then bam! He is attacked, eaten, but Sarah and Rios are safe as the Crawler drags Dan's body away. Rios is horrified that Sarah just let Dan die, but Sarah won't stay around to be scolded. She takes Dan's left-behind flares, flashlight, maps and tools and heads out. Rios follows, freaked out. CUT TO Cath, still trapped, hearing the sinister clicks, thinking Dan is approaching. But of course it's a Crawler, whom Cath manages to slam in the face with a sharp rock, dislodging the rest of the ceiling. As it falls, the Crawler is killed and Cath escapes before being buried. She scurries down the tunnels and finds herself in a Crawler Catacomb. Cath bumps into Greg. They are relieved to be together.
Meanwhile Vaines comes upon Dan's body and assumes Sarah killed him. He tries to contact Cath and Greg via the radio, but his message is barely audible. Cath and Greg keep running and come upon SAM's body (from the first film), dangling upside down from a rope, her innards chewed away. The duo is chased by Crawlers; Cath swings at it with her pick but is pulled down, and devoured. Meanwhile Sarah climbs and swims through numerous tunnels and poor Rios, out of her depth, struggles to keep up. Sarah risks her life to save Rios. The two women form a bond as they nearly drown, are decapitated, and chased by Crawlers. They struggle to find a way out. Rios records a last message on her phone for her little daughter while Sarah remembers hers (now dead). They have a narrow escape from a hungry Crawler.
In another part of the cave, Greg is attacked by two smaller Crawlers but is attacked by its MOTHER and eventually kills himself on his own whirring drill. CUT TO Vaines, who thinks he's being attacked by Crawlers but comes face to face with JUNO - one of the girls lost in the cave! She is filthy, feral, and up for a fight. Vaines still believes Sarah is to blame, and Juno (who remembers killing Beth) is disinclined to change his mind with the facts. But then Vaines catches sight of a Crawler and stares in utter disbelief. Juno kills it. Vaines now blames Sarah for leaving Juno and the others for dead. Juno senses the Crawlers advancing and attacks with her teeth. Then she grabs her pick and is about to strike in another direction when she comes fact to face with ... Sarah. They stare, frozen. Vaines then takes charge and ushers them to find out away. They four (with Rios) are the only ones left.
Then, as they try to escape, the ground gives way beneath Vaines's feet. The girls realize they have to leave him or be killed themselves, and seeing their choice, Vaines claps handcuffs around his own wrist to Sarah's. When the Crawlers, chewing on the dangling Vaines, threaten to bring down the whole group, they struggle for the keys without success. Finally Juno uses an axe to chop Vaines's arm off at the wrist. He falls, screaming, as the others tread carefully through the caves looking for a possible exit. The find the area, blood-drenched, where the Crawlers eat; there they are, chomping away. The three press on until they see an opening up above. Juno waits below while Sarah and Rios press their backs together and ‘walk' up the side. Sarah throws a rope for Juno, and hauls her up. But Juno is getting mauled from below, and she gives Sarah permission to go after Rios, who has found the cave opening, and safety.
But Sarah chooses to stay and help Juno fight off the Crawlers. They are about to be overrun by hundreds when they realize they still have Dan's gas detector, signaling a red alert for methane. Using a lighter, the girls ignite a fireball that rushes through the tunnels, killing everything (even them ...?) while Rios, out safely, calls for backup just as a Crawler attacks her, jaws open.
COMMENTS: Gory, exciting, tightly written. A nice combination of gore and suspense. The writing is speedy and sure-footed. It's nice to move back so confidently to the simple gross-out genre, as opposed to the torture porn of recent years. THE DESCENT 2 might feel weaker than the original because it is simple and formulaic, but its thrills and chills and scenes of innards spilling and blood gushing (oh! and the rat emerging from the girl's mouth!) still pack a punch.
One reason the script feels so lean is because the characters have no personality, no back story, no stereotypical sexual persona, and no burning issue they have to come to grips with during the film (arc!). It's actually quite refreshing to read a script that hasn't been overdeveloped; THE DESCENT 2 sets out to put the characters and the viewers in a dark, cramped, viscerally horrifying environment and let them fight their way out. Everything about this is creepy - the sounds, the lack of light (except with infrared, extra-creepy), the ceiling falling, the ground giving way beneath, and lakes of blood and viscera. It is hellish in the most literal sense.
THE DESCENT 2 does a good job of filling the niche it filled so well in 2005. It offers viewers exactly what they've come for. The climax is exciting and visually interesting - a fireball that consumes the Crawlers; we never learn the fate of the three heroines, I guess that's for next time. Overall, CONSIDER the script as one that is successful, but only the appetites of your young viewers for well-done gore will determine to what degree.
| Source: Emmet K |
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Read 28 User Comments
I don't like that at all. They should use completely new characters. And not change the way the last film ended. |
i am not reading this but i hope they do this well |
If this is true, I fucking awesome.
The first movie blew my mind. And this is going to be very good.
Can´t wait. |
I already got yelled at by two people for posting this... but seriously, by reading this is it going to change ANYONES mind from seeing it? Furthermore, if people don't want to know what happens they won't read it. Personally it's a sequel to The Descent, who gives a crap if we read about it? |
Looks bogus. Sorry, but I've never seen a coverage report listing a director; no reader mentioned; what studio or outfit does the reader work for?; and three paragraphs of comments with no criticism? Any professional coverage would not read the way this one does, which ultimately is rather amatuerish. |
Well it seems Mr Marshall isn't at the helm this time so they can stick it where the sun dont shine. |
the decent was a good indivisual horror movie they shouldnt of bothered with a sequal |
If the sequal sucks there is no big loss. It just wont go in the DVD collection. The first one is a great stand alone movie and can remain that way. I`ll give the sequal its chance when it comes out. |
YES!!!!! cant wait for it! I just brought the 1st one 2day b/c it was on sale for 9.99 and I loved it!!!!!! Glad there still using Sarah!!! does anyone know when this film will be released? |
The-Bark,
This isn't a spec script - it's a sequel script. They're still going to do coverage as more than likely it's a writer-for-hire gig, and the story will be developed further once this draft passes. That said, it'd be funny if the "reader" was actually some guy trying to break into the biz with this idea. |
Uh, the Comments Summery states that no characterization is a good thing, and that people only pay for the thrills. Wasn't the whole characterization and human interaction between the friends a MAJOR part of the first movie. The whole trust, then suspicion and reverting to animal instinct was a BIG part of the original movie. The characters had their little dramas going on, and that made them seem more real. More real, hence you could feel more for them, which I did. The Comments seemed like this draft was just another "catering to the pointless blood and gore wankers". After reading the draft, some of it seem Sci-Fi Channel Original-esque. If anything, MAINLY because the characters other than Sarah and Juno come off as dry. |
well..i like the idea but i have to agree that the characters lack the personality and background...i feel like they're bring too much stuff from the original back..(like the crawler on the camera)...too much like the original..otherwise..i hope its good though..i loved the first one... |
so they are going to completely throw the ending(original) out the window and go from the alternate ending...so how will this play with the people (like me) who think the original ending is far better than the other one. not a good way to start hype for a movie for me,by starting from the worse of the two endings and going from there. i knew when i saw it that the u.s ending was way more sequel friendly.since i LOVE the original i am hoping for the best put preparing for the worst!! |
Either way, I'm against a sequel for the original. |
Well it sounds OK, but I have one MAJOR issue with it (maybe it will be addressed on screen, but wasn't in the review), but, How do the searchers know where to look? The girls were in a DIFFERENT, UNEXPLORED cave. There is no elevator. There is no map. The rescuers take a basically brain-dead girl to a cave that they do not know about, where an elevator has magically appeared. This really contradicts the original. |
Well, it should be fun. Can't wait to see it. |
As a huge UK fan of THE DESCENT -- this sounds average. The studio don't care what we think they ae only looking for a profit. This movie made it's money on DVD abd that us the target for this flick. |
ANd why would i fund the rat moment a highlight. That's the black cat jumps out moment. Yawn. |
Doesn't sound that bad. But it sounds nowhere near as good as the original. |
I forgot to mention, it rides on the tired old horror sequel cliche of "lone survivor gets picked up by rescuers(be them police, or whatever) and they TAKE HER BACK to where she was in the first movie, hence 'it happens again'!". No no no no NO! That's a sequel cliche that, seriously needs to die. Yes, that's a cliche that talentless HACKS use. It should've NEVER been considered for a sequel to The Descent. Sorry to say, but the first movie REALLY is too good for that kinda of sequel treatment. |
This sounds completely lame. There's no way they would take a woman who's in obvious shock on some rescue mission. LAME! She would be sent to the hospital!
And Juno is still alive??? Wasn't she the pretty asian woman who was cheating with her friend's husband? And stabbed in the leg and left for dead? Sorry...but she would NOT still be alive. She would have been a delicious asian buffet. |
this reminds me an awful lot of booggins.... |
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