Director: Scott Derrickson
Starring: Miles Teller, Anya Taylor-Joy, Sigourney Weaver
Certificate: 15
Run Time: 127 mins

The Gorge is the new film by Scott Derrickson, a science fiction romantic action film with espionage and horror elements – quite the genre mash-up on paper. The director is best known for his work in the horror genre, with films such as Sinister and The Black Phone but he’s proven his hand at other works too, for example with Doctor Strange. The Gorge is written by Zach Dean, with the spec script spending time on the Black List before Derrickson signed on to direct in early 2022. 

Miles Teller and Anya Taylor-Joy play two elite snipers who receive identical missions: travel to a secret location and guard a deep gorge without knowing what lies inside for a year without any outside contact. One guards the eastern side, the other the western and the two aren’t allowed to have contact with each other. But the two quickly start communicating with each other and things escalate from there. 

While The Gorge shows a lot of promise in places, it’s overlong and goes heavy on the romance with painfully obvious story beats. There’s a reason Apple has decided to give this film a Valentine’s Day release. The film would be much stronger with a good half an hour removed, and the cuts to make would be to the protracted sequences where the duo’s romantic relationship develops. Even in its final form though, Teller and Taylor-Joy make for an expectedly great duo, but it’s Teller who gives the better performance because his character has more meat on the bone. 

When Derrickson leans into the horror elements, the film excels. There’s a handful of effective jump scares and slimy creature design, akin to a harder-edged Guardians of the Galaxy meets Pirates of the Caribbean. The film’s vibrantly shot by Dan Laustsen and there’s a moody score by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, but some of the tracks outside of the score are painfully on-the-nose. 

While it’s competently directed, it’s a shame The Gorge doesn’t live up to the potential of its intriguing premise. The decision to focus on the burgeoning romance between the duo feels at odds with the film’s harder horror edge and it’s drastically overlong. While The Gorge is one of Derrickson’s weakest efforts, I enjoyed some of its visuals and horror elements but the film could have been much better.