The Gorge (2025)

Derrickson's romantic apocalyptic horror film The Gorge suffers from a few problems. It's not very romantic and it's not very horrifying for example. The film's premise is extremely high concept and for me they never convinced me of any of it. The amount of times you'll ask yourself why didn't they think of X as your making your way through the plot will be frequent. The Gorge never quite comes together as much of anything it's trying to accomplish. 

Teller and Taylor-Joy have 0 chemistry and the The Gorge never believably makes us feel there is any connection. It plays like traditional romance with the absurd "meet cute" and then witty banter. But it's all surface. You never believe they love each other. At one point I wondered if the film was trying to make a point about two people falling for each other because... well there are no other options, about how they are entrapped into a relationship. But the film never consciously explores this. That's too bad cause that might have been more interesting. The Gorge instead builds their loves story earnestly and fails in its attempt to do so. 

Then the film jumps, often quite radically, into Annihilation style existential horror, perhaps with an Alien franchise bent (not a reference to Weaver's phone it in appearance). But here again it never feels like it gets it. The mystery isn't very complicated or nuanced and it just becomes a fairly standard "monster movie". I never felt scared, and the stakes didn't particularly feel intense. The more you thought about the premise, the less the film felt realistic. It feels like the idea wasn't thought through well before it was put to paper. 

The Gorge is released on streaming where it is the sort of film you'll likely look away from to scroll through your phone and not miss much of anything. 

The Gorge

Starring: Miles Teller, Anya Taylor-Joy, Sigourney Weaver 

Director: Scott Derrickson

Writer: Zach Dean