"The Gorge"

By Winston Chu April 2, 2025

Fear of the dark is one of the most widespread childhood fears. With their active imagination, children conjure up images of scary monsters crawling around and scaling the walls. Of course, every parent reassures their kid that these ominous creatures do not exist. But what if they did? What if there was a place on Earth where the nightmarish creatures we imagined as children were trying to escape and attack us?

“The Gorge,” directed by Scott Derrickson, best known for his work in horror films and movies in the “Doctor Strange” franchise, addresses these questions and more. The movie follows Levi, played by Miles Teller, who is a former U.S. Marine Scout known for his sharpshooting skills. One day, the government transports him to an unknown remote location to complete a secret mission. There, he finds himself in a tower overlooking a massive gorge, which he is tasked with defending. On the other side of the gorge stands another identical tower, occupied by Kremlin sharpshooter Drasa, who is played by Anya Taylor-Joy. Together, the two of them must defend the gorge from the—you guessed it—monsters trying to climb out and escape.

Months go by and their loneliness deepens, causing them to break protocol and communicate with each other through scribbled notes and tower viewers. Eventually, they fall in love, and while ziplining across the gorge to see one another, both characters—you guessed it again—plummet into the gorge. However, this grants them the opportunity to finally discover the dark truth behind its depths.

While the film sounds enticing on the surface, watching it was a completely different and relatively disappointing experience. It ambitiously attempted to blend too many genres together, but to no avail. The action-packed fight and chase elements, the horror scenes of creatures jumping out, the science fiction element of uncovering the truth and the romance between Levi and Drasa force the film to juggle too many ideas at once. Although incorporating multiple elements can provide balance, in this case, it simply led to underdeveloped and underwhelming subplots that overshadowed “The Gorge” as a whole.

While the film had significant potential with its unique concept and talented crew, the overloaded plot simply could not go on any longer, and fell straight into the gorge.

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About the Contributors

Winston Chu

staff writer

Winston Chu is a junior at Leland High. This is his second year in Journalism, and his first year as a movie columnist. He enjoys speech and debate, watching television series, and sleeping.