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Learning cool behind-the-scenes trivia about some of my favorite movies, even decades after they’ve been released, is one of my simple pleasures. Neil Marshall’s “The Descent” \u2014 likely the most intense and terrifying survival horror ever made<\/a> \u2014 is certainly on the list, and there’s no better time than this year to revisit its “making of” as the film celebrates its 20th<\/sup> anniversary. There are myriad of reasons why it’s Marshall’s singular masterpiece to this day \u2014 from its simple yet effective script to its immaculate pacing to the monster design to practical effects to sneaky jump scares<\/a> \u2014 but the latest one given to us in the new Empire issue<\/a> (which reunited some of the cast) is that the writer-director purposely hid the Crawlers from the all-female cast for most of the shoot. His goal? Getting genuine screams and panic in that first encounter.<\/p>\n If you’ve seen the film (and you should), you’ll probably never forget the night vision scene<\/a> where the women discover the bones of dozens of dead animals in the cave, and that they aren’t alone down there. To say that Marshall pulled it off is an understatement, but at first, the disturbing sequence didn’t really go as planned. Asking the director if he chose this method specifically to ramp up the suspense, he said:<\/p>\n “Maybe too much! When we finally had them meet, it was a scene in the pitch darkness, and we sneaked Craig Conway [who played lead Crawler, Scar] in for the shot, thinking we’d get a genuine reaction. Which we absolutely did, but it was too genuine. Everybody turned around, screamed and ran off the set.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n Read more: The 15 Best A24 Horror Movies, Ranked<\/a><\/p>\n\n
The Descent’s terrors age like fine wine<\/h2>\n