DEEP (non-spoiler) Review

I wasn’t going to do a review on this movie since I’ve been trying to limit the amount of non-Korean horror content I post until the end of August, but since it just came out I figured it might be good to put one up in case someone was trying to feel out the movie and whether it was worth it to watch. I ended up watching it when it premiered on Netflix a couple of days ago, and after watching I knew that I maybe needed to focus a review on it.

Desperate for cash, Jane (Care Panisara Rikulsurakan) joins a study on insomnia that implants a chip to make sure you stay awake. The project spirals out of control as her and three other students try to get out.

Deep had so much potential to be a fairly decent movie, but ultimately fell flat. I wish I had liked the movie more, and I wish that it had pushed the boundaries a bit more. It had an interesting concept, and the cast did relatively well with the script they were given, so I know that if they had a more fleshed out story they’d be able to carry it. You could see where the movie was supposed to go at multiple times, but they never attempted to or tried to go in any of those directions. For the first half of the movie, it’s barely a thriller or even sci-fi movie. We don’t see much about the actual study of what the chip does. For the most part it’s just about a group of teens finally being free to be themselves and finding friendships with all this extra free time they have. During the pivotal turning points, it was boring and uninventive. It never kept you on the edge of your seat and the climax was equally as boring.

While the movie is obviously for a younger crowd, I don’t think that it even lives up for them. I know that if you had asked me if I enjoyed the movie when I was like 13 I’d still feel the same sense of emptiness out of it. I probably wouldn’t pick up on things like the weird dialogue and deliveries, but the thriller aspect of the movie was really not there, and I would have been as disappointed then as I am now.

Should you watch this? I’d say no, there are several other sci-fi thrillers that are much better that this can definitely be skipped. I’d say that unless you have teens or preteens who like this type of movie and want to find something you both can watch together knowing that there isn’t going to be any sex scenes or bad language, this isn’t the movie night for you. It is by far not the worst thing I’ve sit through but ultimately I’d say watch something else.

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