The Descent: 20th Anniversary - Lionsgate Limited 4K UHD SteelBook

Sometime back in the long-ago time of 2007, our own Peter Bracke took a look at The Descent when Lionsgate issued it on Blu-ray. I don’t fully disagree with Mr. Bracke’s assessment of the film, outside of the point that I felt his star rating was just too low. Now I don’t think it’s quite perfect; I agree it has some small faults, but it’s a well-thought-out, slickly made horror feature that has only gotten better with age. 

Forgoing an unnecessary recap, I’ll start my point by saying I’d never been to a theater to see a film that hit so many people on a primal level before, or since my first screening of The Descent. It was joyful and exhilarating to see how people would react to different points in the film. Now, as a person who has small struggles with claustrophobia (I can not wear neckties anymore), this was one of my worst nightmares come true - being stuck in a tight cave. Never mind the creepy Crawlers; trying to squeeze through a narrow tunnel with little room to move or breathe is truly the nightmare that has woken me up from many a dead sleep over the years. In fact, at my first viewing, when Shauna Macdonald's Sarah got stuck in the tunnel, I apparently passed out in my seat! I was there one moment, then the next, my friend was slapping at my face as I was waking up a few seconds later. Thankfully, I didn't miss anything, and that hasn’t happened again for subsequent viewings; once was enough. But, it's still damned scary!

The point of that story is that before even any kind of bloodthirsty creature shows up, the film is already tense and terrifying. In fact, the presence of creatures almost spoils it. But Marshall gets this creature feature right. The Crawlers are an unrelenting, uncompromising force to be reckoned with. If Marshall drew comparisons to Aliens with the pack of werewolves in Dog Soldiers, he certainly completed that image with the Crawlers in The Descent. 

If there’s a shame in the success of the wildly entertaining Dog Soldiers and the deathly scary The Descent, it's that Marshall just hasn’t been able to recapture the same visceral magic with his follow-up projects. He’s made fun movies since; I’m a defender of Doomsday and his run at Hellboy, but everything else is sadly a bit iffy. Outside of some of his TV work, I just haven’t seen anything that showcased the same spark of Marshall’s early work.

I guess if I’m going to measure a movie by how good it is, I’d say The Descent isn’t a movie I want to watch all that often. Since 2005, I’ve probably only seen this movie six times, maybe eight, tops. It’s one of those films I never want to be desensitized by, so I only pull it off the shelf when I know the vibe is right and I’m in the mood to turn the lights off and have a good scare. The first blisteringly cold night in November was just right. 

If you’d like, here’s Peter Bracke’s Blu-ray Review for a slightly different but appreciative take on the film. 

Vital Disc Stats: The 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray 
At long last, The Descent celebrates its 20th Anniversary by taking the plunge to 2160p with a two-disc 4K UHD + Blu-ray + Digital SteelBook release exclusive from Lionsgate Limited. The 4K is pressed on a BD100 disc, a Region A BD50 serves up the 1080p of the film. The SteelBook is another artful piece with some excellent original work by Matt Ryan Tobin, with a plastic slipcover to accent the work on the case itself. Each disc loads to an animated main menu with standard navigation options. Both the US Cut and slightly longer “Unrated” Cut are included, but why the hell you’d watch that nonsensical ending of the US version is beyond me.

Thanks to an opening title card, we know that the film’s restoration was supervised by Pathe in collaboration with director Neil Marshall, with a 5K scan of the original 35mm negatives. VDM Laboratory later carried out the photochemical and digital restoration work. So to that point, we’re not getting a simple upscale with an HDR layer; we’re getting something a whole lot better, and it shows! Front to back, this is a gorgeous transfer. The original Blu-ray was great in its day, but there’s just no contest that a fresh scan and Dolby Vision can bring to a visually unique feature such as this. From the opening river rafting sequence, I felt the sense of detail clarity was greatly improved. And that became even more notable down in the cave. Film grain is also much tighter and more cleanly rendered with a stronger sense of depth. 

The Dolby Vision grade really cooks. If you’ve seen The Descent before, you know it’s a dark film with extremely limited light sources. But now, because HDR is doing what it should, we’re getting those deep inky blacks, with better care for the limited light sources, shadows, and the little flourishes of color that oozes out as flashlights, flares, and glowsticks light the way. That’s really where that sense of depth improves now, as those limited lighting sources grow from small pinpricks until they gradually get closer to the screen, we get that stronger sense of the characters moving through the space. And again, with the different colors of the lights, that can be a pretty dynamite visual. Can’t find a fault to know the score for.

On the audio front, we now have a slightly rejiggered DTS-HD MA 7.1 track versus the original Blu-ray’s LPCM 6.1 mix. After doing some brief disc flippies, I can’t say there’s a whole hell of a lot of difference between the two. Some small differences for an effect placement here or there, but nothing that's shockingly different. The 7.1 does seem a bit more spacious in some of the key scenes I flipped between, but nothing of a dynamic sort to say “this is better than that.” Truly, if Lionsgate had just wanted to leave well alone and recycled that 6.1 mix, it would have been fine by me. It was a killer mix 18 years ago (god, has it been that long?!?), and this 7.1 track remains so. 

Dialog is clean throughout. I had no issues with some of the heavier accents, even in areas where we’re not exactly supposed to hear what’s being said, because the characters are so far away. But like the image depth, the soundscape is richly active and immersive, and those voices get clearer as they move closer, so we get that excellent sense of imaging. And damn is it creepy when those Crawlers start howling and scuttling around the surround channels. Levels were right on point. I keep reading a lot of scuttlebutt about “why no Atmos?” or this and that, but I don’t see what use it would have been when everything about this track already works right on point. Sure, they could have done one, but it's not like we're getting an inferior product by not having one. 

Completing the package, we have a tremendous selection of extra features. The original release already had some fantastic extras headlined with two excellent commentaries, but Lionsgate wasn’t willing to sit and cover those basics again. Top of the pack is a fantastic, lengthy retrospective, What Lies Beneath: Reexploring The Descent, featuring a slew of new cast and crew interviews. It’s really cool to see so much talent come back after 20 years to talk about their work in such an in-depth way without ever sounding like a back-patting puff piece. There’s a new segment dedicated to the film’s score before we get to the archival materials. The only thing I see missing (but I don’t actually miss it) is the PiP Underground Experience, which I always found more distracting than useful. All told, after two very good commentaries, you’re getting about two and a half hours of great extra content. 

• Audio Commentary (Unrated Version Only) featuring Director and Crew: Neil Marshall, John Harrison, Tina Richardson, Christian Colson, and Simon Bowles
• Audio Commentary (Unrated Version Only) featuring Director and Cast: Neil Marshall, Nora Jane Noone, Sasika Mulder,  MyAnna Buring, Shauna Macdonald, and Alex Reid 
• What Lies Beneath: Reexploring The Descent (HD 46:53)
• Poetic Pain: The Film Score (HD 9:31)
• The Descent: Beneath the Scenes (SD 41:19)
• Deleted and Extended Scenes (HD 9:56)
• Outtakes (SD 5:13)
• DescENDING - Interview with Neil Marshall (SD 7:13)
• Caving - A High Definition Experience (SD 8:38)
• Storyboard and Scene Comparisons (SD 10:56)
• A Special Breed of Effects & Actors (SD 11:51)
• Creating an Underground World (SD 9:56)
• The Fine, Fearless, and Feisty (SD 9:34)
• Trailer Gallery:
• International Teaser
• International Theatrical A
• International Theatrical B
• US Theatrical 
• TV Spot

It's been twenty years, and The Descent remains one of the most terrifying and visceral experiences. It’s one of the few films that is just as effective today as it was that first time in the theater (even if I don’t pass out for a few seconds anymore). Now, for this anniversary event, Lionsgate Limited gives us a release to genuinely celebrate. The new Dolby Vision transfer is effectively perfect for this film; the slightly rejiggered audio is impressive all on its own. But if a great A/V offering wasn’t enough, they upped the ante with a splendid and informative retrospective documentary and a nice (if slightly too short in my opinion) appreciation of the film’s score before offering up the archival extras. The nice thing is, this release hasn't sold out yet, so if you were at all on the fence, purchase with confidence that you’re getting a fantastic release. If you’re a fan of the film, eager for an upgrade - Must Own 

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