A pair of lethal snipers separated by a massive chasm protect the Earth from demons escaping the gates of Hell in The Gorge, now streaming on Apple TV+. This one has an engaging setup and some terrific horror production design, but attempts to turn what should have been a simple creature feature into an all-encompassing action-adventure-romance story result in serious pacing and length issues. Still, it ticks enough boxes to warrant at least a mild recommendation.
Directed by Scott Derrickson (Sinister, The Black Phone), The Gorge stars Miles Teller as Levi, a former U.S. marine haunted by memories of war who is recruited by a private contractor Bartholomew (Sigourney Weaver) on a top-secret mission. How secret? Levi is sedated on the plane ride over, and parachutes down with no idea where he is and a day’s hike away from his target.
That target is a concrete tower overlooking a massive gorge, where Levi meets the man he is replacing: J.D. (Sope Dirisu), who helpfully fills him (and us) in on all the exposition that has been hitherto unmentioned. The gorge represents what might be a literal gate to Hell, and Levi has been tasked with protecting Earth from the demons who attempt to crawl up out of it.
Thankfully, he isn’t alone: across the gorge sitting in a matching tower is Lithuanian assassin Drasa (Anya Taylor-Joy), who has been tasked with the same mission. The two of them represent a long line of soldiers from both sides of the former Iron Curtain who have been sniping demons at the gorge since the 1940s. Levi finds messages scrawled by past recruits on a wall behind a shelving unit.
Contact is forbidden between the two sides, but they can spy on each other through the sight on their sniper rifles, and take to leaving each other messages. It gets lonely out at the gorge on the edge of the world, and Levi only checks in with his handler once a month. Long-distance relationships are tough, but Drasa could only be a zip line ride across the gorge away.
Lest we think this all might be some kind of love story or mind experiment in the vein of Netflix’s (at least initially) similar Spiderhead, also starring Teller, no: there really are scaly humanoid monsters crawling up out of the gorge, and the two snipers can only barely stop them with the assistance of automated turrets and dangling proximity mines. You’d think the powers that be would send more than a single representative to keep all these demons from entering Earth, but maybe budgets have been slashed.
Director Derrickson has helmed films in a range of genres, from his sci-fi remake of The Day the Earth Stood Still to the MCU entry Doctor Strange, but is best known for his horror movies—Sinister has been cited as the scariest movie ever made, according to science.
The horror/sci-fi elements are where The Gorge really stands out. As the movie descends into the mysterious titular locale, the creatures here aren’t only the Groot-like hybrid zombies we see scaling the walls, but an eye-opening array of imaginative monster designs from giant centipedes to man-sized Venus flytraps to spiders with human skulls as thoraxes. Deep in the gorge, human DNA has merged with the environment to create a spectacular array of inventive creatures, while cinematographer Dan Laustsen (John Wick: Chapter 4) captures them all through high-contrast colored backlighting that recalls Dario Argento’s Suspiria.
Just where is the gorge? While the protagonists must find out at some point, the script leaves the audience in the dark. Still, the breathtaking central location gives the film the kind of memorable impact that may be missing from lower-budgeted films of this nature. Mountainous exteriors and the central canyon were filmed in Norway’s Romsdalen Valley.
The Gorge doesn’t really seem to know where to go with its story, and after an intriguing setup and satisfying journey to a nightmarish world, the final half-hour of the film takes a sharp turn towards a much more conventional finale. The various plot threads take their time to resolve themselves while we really want to get back to the gorge, and an off-key epilogue feels like it was borrowed from The Shawshank Redemption.
Still, there’s a lot to like here for fans of various genres; while most direct-to-streaming films that try to appeal to wide audiences (Back in Action, Ghosted, Family Plan, or Red Notice, to name a few) end up pleasing few, The Gorge is a rare effort that genuinely distinguishes itself from the competition.
One Response
Normally I don’t comment but I checked this out after the not-terrible reviews and was seriously underwhelmed. Like you said in the review the scenes inside the Gorge were the highlight, but that’s what, 15 minutes of this movie? The problem is that not only does the entire premise of the movie not make sense (why tf are there only two snipers guarding this massive LONG canyon ESPECIALLY if its a private company behind it) but the so much of the movie just seems to ignore the fact that THERE BE MONSTERS. All the romance, the conspiracy plotting, the backstory—there’s friggin monsters there guys, remember? Anyway go see Mann’s The Keep for another flawed but much more interesting take on a similar premise that actually deals with the premise it introduces.