Early report from London’s Ealing Studios!
Having just recently seen The Descent on a big screen at Three D’s Neil Marshall Day as part of London’s Frightfest – and getting totally blown away by its brilliance (having only ever seen it on TV or DVD) – to hear of Celador Films’ The Descent 2 being in production I was pretty damn excited. The Descent has to be one of the UK’s best and unique horror films to date.
Feeling slightly confused as to how it could possibly carry on – but then thinking you never actually see Sarah (Shauna McDonald) die in the UK version – I put that behind me and have the upmost faith in the fact that this film is going to rip you apart. It boasts the same crew as the first film: Paul Hyett on special effects, Simon Bowles production designing, Sam Curdy on cinematography duties, UK horror writer James Watkins (My Little Eye) penning the script and The Descent‘s editor Jon Harris on board as director. Throw in the same sound designers and Neil Marshall as an executive producer…it’s enough to give me a brain hemorrhage just thinking about it.
How f**king lucky was I then to get the difficult job for ShockTillYouDrop.com of visiting the set of The Descent 2 for a day last week. Only slightly gutted to have just missed out on day of Crawler action, I did get to watch Sarah and Rio, a new character played by Krysten Cummings, enter the caves and submerge into 8-foot tanks of water.
Being that it was a Thursday, and the shoot was wrapping on the Saturday, there was a pretty calm atmosphere on set (maybe it was all those dark days surrounded by the awesome cave creations from Bowels). I was met by the lovely Georgia, my tour guide, and we set out to nab who we could for interviews and to lurk in the background as the film’s final scenes came together.
I was fortunate to get some interviews with Watkins who recently wrote and directed Eden Lake, a UK horror film out this summer. I nabbed Shauna McDonald and Krysten Cummings for a few minutes on their lunch break, producer Christan Colson and Bowles. Neil made a little visit, as he lives just around the corner from Ealing Studios, but wanted to politely take a backseat in regards to interviews. After a really good natter with Colson, we decided it was better to try and catch director Harris another time – watching him working he was bloody focused. We’ll be getting an exclusive with him from the cutting room in a couple of weeks. I’d missed UK special effects guru Hyatt but shall be on the case to get a one-on-one with him later (plus I want to see monsters in the workshop!).
Coming away from such a fantastic cast, crew and set, I had a head and dictaphone bulging with The Descent 2 information and background. Now, keep those eyes truly peeled open as I will be fallowing up this little teaser with a full set report oozing with on-set interviews and an in-depth point of view from the amazing dark caves of this anticipated sequel…
Source: Melanie Light
