Horror movies can be many things. Sometimes they can be cerebral slow burns, sometimes campy slashers, sometimes genre-mashing game-changers. But every so often, a horror movie comes along that is just unrepentantly balls-to-the-wall Extra with a capital “E.”
Thailand export The Pool is just such a movie. It is a movie that does not give a single solitary f-bomb about plausibility, physics, or the delicate art of CGI. Not one. Not a single one. But my God, is it ever entertaining. I’m not going to lie to you. The Pool requires some Herculean suspensions of disbelief. Get some unbreakable girders, weave together some steel cable, take your disbelief and strap that sumbitch up there for the duration, ’cause that’s the only way the movie will make any amount of sense. But once you do you’re in for an extremely fun time.
The movie begins in media res: Our plucky protagonist, Day (Theeradej Wongpuapan), a.k.a. God’s Punching Bag, a.k.a. The Unluckiest Guy Ever, is laying unconscious at the bottom of what appears to be a pool in the burning sun. He’s battered, bloody, and – as soon as he opens his eyes – being chewed on by a crocodile. Mind you, it is the worst CGI crocodile you’ve ever seen, but damned if I didn’t still jump at that moment. I mean, who expects a movie to open with a dude chilling in unconsciousness while a crocodile chews on his leg? Like the Spanish Inquisition, no one expects that.
It then flashes back to how he got there: A crew member for a commercial shoot filming in a giant, abandoned luxury pool, Day takes advantage of floating in the pool after the shoot wraps. Though he’s warned that the pool will be drained in a few hours, he accidentally falls asleep and wakes up to find himself about six feet down from the edge and unable to escape. Because there are no ladders or handholds in the walls of the pool. I don’t know why. We’re never told. Maybe the pool engineers skipped ladder-making day or ran out of budget. Regardless, there are no ladders by which to escape.
Oh, and did I mention Day is diabetic? Because he’s diabetic. And his insulin shot is now on a table ten feet above him. Did I also mention he has a dog? Because he has a dog, Lucky, which is now tied up on a pole at the edge of the pool. And the third thing: Did I mention he has a girlfriend, Koi (Ratnamon Ratchiratham)? Because he has a girlfriend, Koi. And Koi is an idiot, jumping into the draining pool with him before he can stop her, hitting her head, and knocking herself out.
Crocodiles. Because reasons.
That seems like a whole lot of exposition – and you’re right, it is – but I assure you that is but the tip of the iceberg. Trust me, I am giving nothing away. And I haven’t even gotten to the aforementioned crocodile yet. Because of course, now that they are stuck six meters down in a drained pool in the middle of nowhere, the filmmakers decide to toss a little more gasoline onto the fire and throw a giant crocodile into the mix with them for funsies.
Cue Day and Koi trying to survive the elements, dehydration, starvation, and a crocodile more persistent than Tick-Tock the Croc. From that point on, it’s an all-out assault on what we can reasonably expect one man to take before giving up and running headfirst into the concrete wall. Writer-director Ping Lumpraploeng clearly finds delight in being mean to his main character, the movie gleefully evil in seeing just how far it can push Day before he snaps. The movie so clearly relishes tormenting him that the possibility of Day not making it out alive is quickly established; the stakes are ridiculous but still seem very real. It’s one of the few survival movies to give you pause: maybe he won’t make it out, after all. Despite it all, you find yourself rooting for him to survive.
As Day, Wongpuapan holds the movie together with gritty determination and an “Are you f’ing KIDDING ME?” sense of disbelief that elicits laughs. The movie works because he plays Day so straight, acknowledging the absurdity without ever winking at the camera. Wongpuapan is exactly why the movie works: Lean into the camp and you risk losing all that tension. But Wongpuapan never does, instead playing Day as a legit heroic underdog, one you empathize with. It might be a silly premise, but the tension is very real and tightens throughout the movie as increasingly horrible things happen to Day.
I’m sure he can…walk it off.
What the movie lacks in the CGI department, it makes up for in practical effects. There are some pretty gnarly body horror sequences throughout the movie, ones that might be stomach-churning for more sensitive viewers. Closeups of injuries and their aftermaths are shown in graphic detail after the camera refuses to turn away from the moment of those injuries, eliciting sympathetic cringing and winces from the audience. The crocodile might flicker a bit; its image rendering generously described as “Eh, close enough,” but the aftermath of its bites and the bloody mayhem it causes certainly looks real enough.
If there is one criticism I have of the movie (honestly, the crappy croc CGI kind of adds to its charm), it’s the weird, anti-abortion storyline that gets shoehorned into the movie for…well, literally no reason whatsoever. It’s ostensibly to add more melodrama and a steeper price should Day fail, but is completely unnecessary. Call me crazy, but when you already have a man dealing with a giant crocodile, you don’t really need to do anything more to add tension. The Pool is the Yo Dawg meme of survival horror movies: It heard you like stakes so it put some stakes in your stakes so you can stake while you stake. It’s a weirdly preachy subplot for a movie that seems to otherwise have all the respect for life that a boot has for a cockroach, but hey. Sometimes you’ve just gotta shove a random and pointless pregnancy into a movie about a killer croc. As you do.
If you’re wondering whether or not you should see The Pool when it hits theaters, let me ask you this: Do you like fun? If your answer is “yes,” then see The Pool. If your answer is “no,” then…honestly, I don’t even know why you’re still reading. Go regain your joy or something. Is it a good movie? My God, no. But is that exactly what makes it a great movie? Yes. Absolutely yes. It’s a raucously good time at the movies, and sometimes, that’s exactly what you need.
The Pool is in theaters on November 8th. Hit the button below and add it to your watchlist to be alerted for when tickets go on sale.
