“The Gorge” comes to us from Skydance and Apple TV and is from horror director Scott Derrickson and action movie writer Zach Dean. Derrickson has a strong pedigree in horror with films such as “The Black Phone”, “The Exorcism of Emily Rose” and “Sinister” to his name. He also did pretty well with the first “Doctor Strange”, but was kicked off the second for wanting to go too far over to the horror side. I can only wonder what his sequel would been like. Anyway this film stars Miles Teller and Anya Taylor Joy with support from Sigourney Weaver. Cinematography is from Dan Laustsen and the team of Atticus Ross and Nine Inch Nails’ Trent Reznor provide a juicy soundtrack.
The movie tells the story of two elite snipers with pasts that haunt them. For personal reasons they have opted to take on a top secret job at an isolated location for an entire year. They are not given any information in advance, but on arrival are given the task of guarding two sides of a mysterious gorge and preventing the things inside from getting out. Despite their physical distance, the two form a bond and the beginnings of a romance. Eventually though they are plunged (figuratively and literally) into the mysteries and horrors of gorge below. Now they must face both the dangers within and from those that want to keep it a secret.
The Exposition Files
First and foremost “The Gorge” is a character driven romance movie. It is however set with a horror/sci-fi backdrop and one that is very well presented. The special effects here look great, especially the creature effects. The movie relies far too much on darkness though, often leaving the action scenes hard to make out. That seems an artistic choice, since they really didn’t need to conceal any of those creatures for them to be scary. The characters are good and the romance is well constructed. Anya Taylor Joy continues to impress me. Sigourney Weaver however is typecast and plays exactly what you expect. Fortunately her role is brief.
The sci-fi/horror plot is sadly somewhat generic and occasionally descends into outright cliché. Indeed at one moment they find an old film reel revealing everything you probably already guessed in an overdone exposition scene via old video. Figuring exposition into a movie is often a challenge and while I prefer this to dropping in a character to deliver all the exposition and then get killed off, it is still a cliche. Fortunately, none of this really matters for this character based movie. Clearly this is intended to be a romance, with a macabre backdrop. It’s not what most people were probably expecting, but it does work and it is original.
Conclusion
Don’t expect a deep story or big twists here. The plot is the weakest element. It is fairly generic and full of holes that many reviewers are unable to look past. What you should expect however are great creature effects and a strong character based romance. The action scenes that aren’t too dark to view are pretty solid too. The movie just about lands as recommendation and a narrow 6.5/10. It may not be a classic, but it is one of the better genre films of the year.