10 Movie Villains Secretly Introduced Way Earlier Than You Realise

4. The Early Crawler Presence - The Descent

Spider Man Far From Home
Lionsgate

Viewed very much as a classic of its time - well, depending on which version of the ending you watch - Neil Marshall's The Descent wowed the horror community when it was released back in 2005.

Once the picture gets going, the crux of The Descent is that there's a group of friends, trapped in a dark, dank cave, while vicious creatures stalk them at every turn.

For The Descent, is doesn't amp up the 'crawlers' element of dread until a fair way through the movie. Instead, the early goings establish the group dynamic and some of the fractured relationships of the six women who decided it was a smart idea to go spelunking.

Tensions boil over, the atmosphere is strained, and you start to wonder whether these six will ever make it out of the cave in once piece - and that's before the crawlers are even introduced.

On the crawlers front, though, and one of these humanoid beasties was slyly introduced under the audience's nose way before the creatures truly came to the fore.

As we see our core group of protagonists first enter the cave setting and get adjusted to their new surroundings, a flick of a flashlight showcases a brief look at a crawler watching on from behind a rock - giving the eagle-eyed amongst us an idea of what to expect from this underground forray.

Senior Writer
Senior Writer

Once described as the Swiss Army Knife of WhatCulture, Andrew can usually be found writing, editing, or presenting on a wide range of topics. As a lifelong wrestling fan, horror obsessive, and comic book nerd, he's been covering those topics professionally as far back as 2010. In addition to his current WhatCulture role of Senior Content Producer, Andrew previously spent nearly a decade as Online Editor and Lead Writer for the world's longest-running genre publication, Starburst Magazine, and his work has also been featured on BBC, TechRadar, Tom's Guide, WhatToWatch, Sportkskeeda, and various other outlets, in addition to being a Rotten Tomatoes-approved film critic. Between his main dayjob, his role as the lead panel host of Wales Comic Con, and his gig as a pre-match host for Wrexham AFC games, Andrew has also carried out a hugely varied amount of interviews, from the likes of Robert Englund, Kane Hodder, Adrienne Barbeau, Rob Zombie, Katharine Isabelle, Leigh Whannell, Bruce Campbell, and Tony Todd, to Kevin Smith, Ron Perlman, Elijah Wood, Giancarlo Esposito, Simon Pegg, Charlie Cox, the Russo Brothers, and Brian Blessed, to Kevin Conroy, Paul Dini, Tara Strong, Will Friedle, Burt Ward, Andrea Romano, Frank Miller, and Rob Liefeld, to Bret Hart, Sting, Mick Foley, Ricky Starks, Jamie Hayer, Britt Baker, Eric Bischoff, and William Regal, to Mickey Thomas, Joey Jones, Phil Parkinson, Brian Flynn, Denis Smith, Gary Bennett, Karl Connolly, and Bryan Robson - and that's just the tip of an ever-expanding iceberg.