The Descent's Director Almost Left The Horror Movie Over This Incredibly Sexist Note

If you have even the mildest case of claustrophobia, maybe you ought to skip Neil Marshall's 2005 horror thriller "The Descent." The film is about six experienced spelunkers who, as a therapy tool for one of them, descend into an uncharted cave to go exploring. It's meant to be a thrill-seeking exercise, but things get harrowing pretty quickly. Not only are the caves more complex than they expected, but the main characters soon discover a mysterious species of humanoid monsters living in the cave. The bulk of the film is a crazed attempt to flee the monsters and escape the cave with their lives intact. Not all of them will be successful in doing this. "The Descent" starred multiple rising actresses from all over the world, including the Scottish Sauna Macdonald, the Australian Natalie Mendoza, the Swedish MyAnna Buring, the British Alex Reid, the Dutch Saskia Mulder, and the Irish Nora-Jane Noone. 

"The Descent" was a sizable hit, earning over $51 million on a budget of about $4.7 million. Critics loved it, and horror fans flocked to it. It was only director Marshall's second feature (after "Dog Soldiers"), but it would put him on the map, leading to higher-profile gigs directing films like "Doomsday," "Centurion," and the 2019 remake of "Hellboy." In 2024, Marshall directed both "Duchess" and "Compulsion." He is an assured, stylish director with a consistent tone throughout his work. 

He also has integrity, as he once turned down a sexist note for "The Descent." According to a recent interview with Empire Magazine, Marshall was once instructed by studio heads to make "The Descent" more lascivious. It seems that the studio heads noticed that "The Descent" is about six women and zero men, and figured the film should contain at least one scene where the cast members collectively disrobe. Marshall, rather wisely, rejected this idea.

"The Descent" is not a lascivious movie. It's about trauma, camaraderie, and survival. The six lead characters are friends with their own unique relationships. It transcends a lot of the usual tropes of exploitation movies through its character work and through its intensity; it's not a horny flick in the least. Sadly, the studio heads overseeing production noted that the cast consisted of six women, and they (presumably all straight men) felt that one can't make a horror movie with that many women without at least a little nudity. Marshall demurred, feeling that it would actually make "The Descent" more notable merely to make a horror film with six female leads, a rare thing indeed. In his words: 

"[The casting] 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." 

Marshall noted that he wasn't making a movie with six Lara Crofts. Indeed, one of the characters, Beth (played by Reid), notes that they are all anti-Lara Crofts. They are not tank-top-clad babes constructed to titillate men. They are actual explorers. "We were way ahead of the curve on doing something like that," Marshall continued. "Even now, it's still very rare. [...] Once I'd made the decision to make them all women, I never really gave it a second thought."

It happens, but as Marshall noted, it's rare.

The cast of "The Descent" was also interviewed by Empire, and they also recalled that there was a conscious effort to desexualize the movie. They, too, knew that it wasn't meant to be about titillation. Shauna Macdonald recalled doing press for "The Descent" and encountering some pretty sexist questions from journalists. As she recalled: 

"Natalie [Mendoza] 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." 

Saskia Miller admitted that the premise teetered on the exploitative, noting that it sounded like "it would be six girls in a cave in a bikini." Luckily, she learned early in the filmmaking that "The Descent" would be more sophisticated than that. "The audition made it clear it was never going to be that way." Nora-Jane Noone noted that the film was about helping out one's girlfriends and constructing six strong, marvelous characters. The sensational, sexualized aspects, she noted, came later in the process. 

Luckily, there have been multiple notable horror films in recent years to feature mostly women characters. One might recall "Host," the 2020 film about a haunted video call. 2018 saw the release of both Alex Garland's "Annihilation" and Luca Guadagnino's "Suspiria," and they were among the best films of that year. Osgood Perkins made "I Am the Pretty Thing that Lives in the House" in 2016, and all three versions of "Black Christmas" (from 1974, 2006, and 2019) feature mostly women and women's concerns. 

But it's still rare.