Descent 2 yappin!
Dec. 22, 2008
Good old JimmyO recently had a sit down with EDEN LAKE writer/director JAMES WATKINS, who also happened to have written the upcoming sequel THE DESCENT 2. Here's what he had to say about the project and stay tuned to the site for the full interview.
What can we expect from THE DESCENT 2?
Well, you know that Jon [Harris] is directing it, in fact I had lunch with
him last week, it was in the cutting room. Jon cut EDEN LAKE, he was the
editor on EDEN LAKE. And Jon is an absolutely amazing editor and a very,
very talented director as well. Basically what happened was, Jon's cut some
really great films, he cut the first DESCENT. And Christian Colson, the
producer who also produced SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE, the new Danny Boyle movie.
That's my favorite film this past year man.
It's a brilliant movie isn't it?
Absolutely.
Well, Christian has produced… you couldn't get more different movies, he
produced SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE, EDEN LAKE and THE DESCENT… that's his last few
movies. So Christian got me and Jon, we didn't know each other, and he just
kind of put us together and said, 'Listen, let's try and make this work with
Jon cutting James' movie and get James on board in the writing of Jon's
movie. So it's been a really great, kind of collegiate experience. And what
Jon - I hope I'm not putting words in his mouth - but what I think Jon and I
wanted to pursue with the sequel, with D2, was we wanted to make a movie
that kind of had all the best elements, or what we thought were the best
elements of the first film. For us, it was the real primal fear.
For me, sure you need the monsters and they are there and are terrific,
we had a bit more money this time to really emphasis them and make them
good. Obviously they're still in the shadows. But the horrors of being down
in the cave, for us, the horrors of the fear of the dark, fear of this kind
of weight of rock above you, claustrophobia… The scariest sequence for me in
the first film is when she gets caught in the really tight tunnel and she
kind of panics and they have the cave in, I think that is scarier than
anything with the monsters.
That is also my favorite scene in the movie…
Yeah. That is just such a primal fear. So what Jon and I wanted to do was to
kind of… sure the film has to deliver with, you know, once they get down
into the cave, Jon's got the film really tight and it really rocks. It's
just a relentless journey once the team is in the cave. But all those
elements, we wanted just to max out. I don't know how much I can say but…
for example, the claustrophobia, the couple of scenes that we just said,
'Okay, we have that scene in the first film with claustrophobia. How can we
take that and just make it a whole lot bigger and scarier?' There is one
that involves water and it's just terrifying. When we were filming it and
the crew were like, oh my God, this is horrible. I shot the second unit in
it and Jon shot my second unit on EDEN LAKE. Kind of a little British
cottage industry… [Laughing].
I'd so "descend" on these fine ladies...
2:27PM on 12/22/2008
Atleast they avoid the 'send in the marines!' cliche on this, but that's all the credits they get for this so far