Are you afraid of the obscure? Then you might, as any sane person would, be pretty averse to the idea of popping down a hole in the ground and explo
Are you afraid of the obscure? Then you might, as any sane person would, be pretty averse to the idea of popping down a hole in the ground and exploring pitch-black caves as a hobby. That is the set-up to Neil Marshall’s 2005 claustrophobic horror classic The Descent, which sees six women set out on a spelunking mission, a year after one of them loses her husband and daughter in a horrifying accident. It does not go well: as they get lost in the depths and encounter flesh-eating humanoid monsters called Crawlers, the film descends (wink wink) into a bloody, violent fight for survival.
As the film turns 20 this year, Empire reunited writer-director Marshall and five of his cast – Shauna Macdonald (who plays protagonist Sarah), MyAnna Buring (Sam), Alex Reid (Beth), Saskia Mulder (Rebecca) and Nora-Jane Noone (Holly) – for a joyous, lively chat over Zoom, where they reflected on the challenging making of their iconic creature feature and the lifelong friendships it helped create, for a feature in the latest issue. Read an extract from it below, in which the gang recall reading the script for the first time, and the unexpected reception for their all-woman horror movie.
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What were your first impressions of the script? Did the all-female line-up stand out to you?
Shauna Macdonald: My preconceived idea was that ‘girls go caving’ meant it would be leaning into all this sort of lad-mags stuff. But as soon as Sarah’s daughter gets the pole through her face, I thought, “Oh! This is really good.” The writing, the plot, the twist — as you read it, you were totally hooked on it. That it was six females was an added bonus, but we were constantly asked about that. For us, we were just working on a film. It wasn’t until after the film was done, and all the press, that I thought, “Oh yeah, this is actually pretty unique.”
MyAnna Buring: I agree. At the time, yes, it was uncommon — but I had felt like there was something in the air that was going to change, and that this film was just part of that natural evolution. What I think has been weirder is that the industry hasn’t changed to the extent that I naturally expected it would back then.
Macdonald: Natalie and I were once asked by a radio interviewer if all our periods got synced up during the shooting. And that was okay? To ask a female actor that? It was good that we were getting interest about it, but there was this sort of sexualised, grotesque element. Not from anything we were creating, but from outside.

Nora-Jane Noone: It became sensationalised. We were all aware at the time that it was amazing to have this group of women and these powerful characters, but it didn’t translate to that [reception].
Neil Marshall: Which is bizarre, because we were at pains to desexualise the whole thing. Once I’d made the decision to make them all women, I never really gave it a second thought.
Saskia Mulder: I just remember reading the script and thinking that I really liked the characters. Something really bad happening to one of your girlfriends and you being there for each other was something I really responded to. My fear was it would be six girls in a cave in a bikini, but the audition made it clear it was never going to be that way.
Marshall: Again, that was a conscious thing. At one point during the development stage, someone suggested there needed to be a scene where they came upon a lake and they’d all strip off and go swimming together. I said, “If that’s the film you want to make, I quit.” That’s the kind of stuff we were dealing with. But thankfully, people backed our vision of it. That’s what we got to make, and that’s what’s stood the test of time. It wasn’t six Lara Crofts. It was the anti-Lara Croft, as Alex [as Beth] says so beautifully in the film. It’s another thing I’m deeply proud of, that we were way ahead of the curve on doing something like that. Even now, it’s still very uncommon, certainly in the horror genre, to get an all-female cast.

Read the full The Descent 20th anniversary reunion feature in the fresh The Running Man issue of Empire, on sale now and available to order online here. The 4K restoration of The Descent is in cinemas from 24 October. Janine Pipe and Neil Marshall’s book The Making Of The Descent is out now.
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