Reaching the Light of Decent

I have always loved The Decent as a horror movie because it really scares you with these ‘jump out’ scares and how the director utilized the caves to give the audience a claustrophobic feel to the movie. Plus, the acting was simply amazing and very well performed. But there was one element that I liked about this movie and that is how well the lighting played such a vital role to the atmosphere and emotion each scene had. So, lets break down the colors:

From Blogger Pictures

Green: Usually when they show this color they are usually glow sticks but if you noticed that they only show this color when it is wide angles of the caves; showing all the nooks and crannies of the caves. Even during scenes that have this color you see the faces of these creatures, up close and personal and you see the texture, the look, the touch and the sent that these creatures might have. Pretty much having this earthy feel to the scenes.

Orange: This color wasn’t as solid as the rest of the colors but usually when the group is searching through the caves with their torches. It gives the atmosphere a cautious and very ancient look to the film. It makes the audience anxious because the flam only goes so far until it his darkness and after that, you don’t know what’s beyond it. I really like this color for that reason and it’s really interesting to see how orange plays out in this equation… plus, during these scenes, not everything around the flame is orange.

From Blogger Pictures

Red: For this movie, red symbolizes two things: Awaiting danger/death and gore. The first time we see red is when the group is setting up hooks to climb across this huge cave trench. This scene is unnerving with tenseness and it only shows you so much; what I mean by this is that beneath the girl is darkness and nothing else whereas the red light only shows what’s a little ahead and behind. It’s foreshadows danger and death. Hell, later in the movie, the next red scene involves a nice pool of blood and some really gory, gory kill scenes. It’s quit obvious why they would use read for this scene, but also during this scene one of the characters encounters a near-death experience.

So, I really think that the coloring and the lighting just compliment this whole movie for what it is. This was a really scary movie and I am glad that it got something for it’s technical achievement.

Note: I wouldn’t really call the creatures in this movie creatures, they really aren’t. If you really listen to what she says, they are more like a different species of human that have evolved to live in the dark.