Vladimir Propp

Characters:

He also concluded that all the characters could be resolved into only 7 broad character types in the 100 tales he analyzed:

The villain — struggles against the hero.
The donor — prepares the hero or gives the hero some magical object.
The (magical) helper — helps the hero in the quest.
The princess and her father — gives the task to the hero, identifies the false hero, marries the hero, often sought for during the narrative. Propp noted that functionally, the princess and the father can not be clearly distinguished.
The dispatcher — character who makes the lack known and sends the hero off.
The hero or victim/seeker hero — reacts to the donor, weds the princess.
[False hero] — takes credit for the hero’s actions or tries to marry the princess

The Narritive and Story of The Descent

The narrative is a group of people in an isolated location and, as they struggle to overcome this situation, they are attacked by a violent and unknown force. Taking this deceptively simple narrative, the horror of isolation by positioning the characters within a claustrophobic confined space of an unexplored cave system.

The film begins with three friends - Juno, Beth and Sarah. Sarah, coming to the end of a white-water rafting trip. At the edge of the river stands Sarah’s husband Paul and their daughter Jessie. As the three women climb out of their raft it becomes apparent that there may be an adulterous relationship between Juno and Paul. As the family drive home, Sarah distracts Paul, asking him if everything is alright. As he turns to answer her the car drifts into the opposite lane and collides with an oncoming vehicle, resulting in Paul and Jessie’s death. Sarah later wakes up in hospital, injured but alive.
One year later. Juno has arranged for a caving expedition at Boreham Caverns in the Appalachian Mountains. Accompanying her on this trip will be Beth and Sarah, as well as their other friend Rebecca, her sister Sam, and Holly, Juno’s protégé. The expedition begins well but a sudden cave collapse not only traps the women underground but also reveals that they are in an unexplored cave system. Working together the women try to find a way out but it soon becomes apparent that they are not alone and they are eventually attacked by a group of primitive people, the Crawlers. As the group struggles to survive, the Crawlers continue their assaults and steadily the group members are killed, leaving only Juno and Sarah. Having momentarily fought off the Crawlers, Sarah turns on Juno and confronts her with her knowledge of the affair. Instead of killing her, Sarah incapacitates Juno and leaves her for the Crawlers while she makes her own escape.
It is here, with Sarah’s escape, that the North American release of the film ends: Sarah manages to find her way back to civilisation only to be haunted by a vision of a battered and bloody Juno. The UK release briefly continues Sarah’s story with her waking up in the cave, her assumed escape merely a hallucination. Getting up on her knees, Sarah looks into the darkness and has a vision of her dead daughter. The film concludes with Sarah lost in both the cave and a delusional fantasy

Horror Conventions

Props - Character, Organs, Weapons
Lighting - Dark Lighting to create the mood, Backlight to create shadow/siluette
Make-up - Bloody face, heavy make-up on killer
Camera Shots/Editing - Quick Shots, Close ups, Over the Shoulder, Point Of View (POV)
Sound - Face paced, disortant, Non-Diegetic

Guy Ritchie Article