The Descent Analysis

 In the Descent trailer, the audience is introduced the main characters and the overall plot of the film. Right from the start of the film, we are introduced to the characters through a scene of them all posing in front of their log cabin for a photo. We see Sarah (Shauna McDonald), Juno (Natalie Mendoza) Beth (Alex Reid), Rebecca (Saskia Mulder), Sam (MyAnna Buring) and Holly (Nora-Jane Noone) all posing outside of their cabin, which tells the viewer of the trailer who the main protagonists are and who we’re meant to route for. When looking at characters, we could relate back to Vladimir Propp’s theory on character roles in narrative structure, however, due to the nature of the trailer it’s hard to pinpoint character roles. As you can see, the lighting for the entire trailer has very low key lighting; due to the fact the setting is an underground cave. However, you can just about make out that Sarah is supposedly the lead role, or “hero”, as she gets the most camera time. She is also most likely going to be Clover’s final girl, as she was the first one to point out in the trailer that she saw something. The identification with characters and their roles is important in media texts; however in this trailer they don’t make the roles of the characters very clear. Due to the nature of the film, being the film is set in a claustrophobic cave, this may be because they want to add an air of the unknown to the film and make it even more mysterious. The unknown can be very pressing sometimes when frightened, and the use of this may help add to the theme of claustrophobia to the trailer.

  As said previously, the atmosphere is very claustrophobic in the trailer. This is mostly to do with the fact that near enough the entire trailer takes place in an underground cavern with very low key lighting, but also because of the music. Much like the Sinister trailer, the music begins very quietly at the beginning and then gradually crescendos to a very loud climax, and the overall music is more of a hum rather than a score with a noticeable tempo to it. During jump-scares, it very suddenly climaxes so it’s extremely loud and sharp to the ear, making the viewers jump more. As stated in the Sinister trailer analysis, this is all very common to horror fans and these factors will draw their attention.

  There are many iconic images that can be seen here that relate to both horror and cave exploration. For example, during a montage of clips while quotes from critics hover on screen, there was a scene when one of the characters rises up from a pool of blood extremely slowly. This is an iconic image of what we expect from horror films, something weird and horrifying that we would see in a nightmare, and is also similar to other horror films scenes where monsters rise up from the mud of pools of slime. Another scene is a small clip of a knife flashing through the air, while it makes a swishing, screeching noise. This noise of the knife coming down and piercing flesh is very iconic as a sound effect used in other horror movies, such as slashers. When considering cave exploration, you can see the typical equipment of an explorer or an extreme sportsman would don being worn by the protagonists, such as utility belts, flashlight hats, flares and hand picks. This tells us that this horror movie is all about explorers, and the setting shows them being underground, with the iconic images of stalagmites and stalactites adorning the cave ceilings and floors, which tell us that this movie will all be about what these adventurers find down in this cave. All of these iconic images, settings, items and noises used are here to make the whole setting and plot more believable, as we all automatically expect cave explorers to have mountain climbing equipment and exploration gear, as well as try and entice horror fans to come and see the film.