Delayed Reaction: The Pool

Premise: A couple get trapped in an empty pool with a crocodile.

 

The Pool is a movie so ludicrous that everyone watching it decides to turn off their brains and love it. I love that there is this corner of horror. A filmmaker comes up with a compelling, implausible idea and decides to just made it happen. Don't Breathe is a sweaty premise that needs a ton of setup. Once it is set up though, it's a lot of fun. Crawl as well. That scenario would never happen, but if it did, it sure would be compelling to watch. The Pool is one of these too. Every single beat of this is almost comically designed to go from bad to worse.

 

Day (Theeradej Wongpuapan) has to be the last person left at this pool. This pool has to be abandoned. There has to be a photoshoot where there are objects at the bottom of the pool. There has to be no ladder. He has to fall asleep for just long enough for the pool to drain. When Koi (Ratnamon Ratchiratham) shows up, Day has to be asleep. She has to not notice there's no way out of the pool. A crocodile has to show up. It has to slip on some pipes to land in the pool. That's just to set up the main plot. After that, the movie stacks extra complications for the hell of it. Koi sustains a head injury jumping into the pool. Day gets his phone but drops in in the water. The dog is on a leash with just enough give that it could hang itself falling into the pool. The crocodile has eggs to protest. Day is diabetic and doesn't have his insulin. Pizza delivery guy shows up for exactly as long as Day is trapped at the bottom of the pool. There are at least 4 other complications I can think of. This movie stacks and stacks and stacks. It's not graceful writing. The premise isn't as simple as a Buried or a Phone Booth. It requires a lot to keep it going; not to mention how much of this idea is pulled (probably coincidentally) from an It's Always Sunny episode.

 

Because of how transparently the movie is stacking the deck against the characters, eventually I just embraced it all. I know the movie isn't categorized as comedy, but I have to imagine the filmmaker had a sense of humor when making this.

 

Verdict: Weakly Recommend