‘The Descent: The Official Movie Novelization’ – Christian Francis (Titan Books)

 

Page Count: 220 Pages

This blog has been running long enough now that I should probably stop mentioning how movie novelizations were essential reading, for me, back in the eighties. It’s not like you haven’t heard me say it already. They were though ;o) Anyway…

I still have a soft spot for these books, and I never got round to watching ‘The Descent’ back in the day, so when I saw the novelization in Waterstones… Well, it pretty much bought itself. I’m already a fan of Francis’ novelization of ‘Session 9’ so that made things even easier ;o)

After a tragic accident, six friends reunite for a caving expedition. Their adventure soon goes horribly wrong when a collapse traps them deep underground and they find themselves pursued by bloodthirsty creatures. As their friendships deteriorate, they find themselves in a desperate struggle to survive not only the monsters, but also each other.

I’ll be honest, I struggled to finish ‘The Descent’ but not for the reasons you might think. Taking a break, from the book, to watch the movie wasn’t a mistake as such but it did leave me wondering whether I needed to continue reading the book. After all, well… you know ;o)

And while I’m being honest, I struggle to follow tales that are set underground, on screen (too dark) but also on the page. I find it as easy to get lost in the tunnels as the characters do and whether or not that’s deliberate on the part of the author, I always feel like I’m missing out on something. That’s on me though and it shouldn’t put you off reading ‘The Descent’, not in the least.

‘The Descent’ is a very faithful re-telling of the events of the movie but with little ‘extras’ that flesh out the plot and give it a little context. I already knew that Francis is good at adding characterization, without losing the characters unique identity, and he does that here to great affect. Little moments, that you don’t see in the movie, really make later events mean something. Especially the ending scenes… It all adds to the sense of tragedy here. Sometimes, humanity's worst enemy really is itself.

And while I did get lost in those tunnels, what I will say is that Francis does a superb job of capturing not only how claustrophobic those tunnels are, but also the horror of what lies at the end. Add some fast crawling monsters in pursuit and ‘The Descent’ moves along at just the right speed (maybe even a little more so than the movie, at least from where I’m sat).

‘The Descent’ wasn’t an easy read then but that was more about me than the book itself. If you’re a fan of the movie, I reckon you’ll get a lot out of this read.

P.S. If Christian Francis happens to come across this post... I've always fancied reading novelizations of 'The Blob' (1988), 'Dog Soldiers' and 'Event Horizon'. Just saying... ;o)