The Death of Genre Purity: The Gorge failed at Genre-blending

I sat on my bed on a friday night not wanting to do any work but decided to scroll on instagram to pass time. I kept thinking “What movie should I watch tonight…maybe I'm in the mood for romance. Or wait no action…or wait no apocalyptic.” After a few rookie reels, an advertisement for the trailer of The Gorge started playing. 

* Cue Apple TV Sound * 

“What’s the mission? To keep people from going into the gorge?”
“No. It’s to keep what's in it from getting out. ” 

“The gorge is the door to Hell, and we are standing at the gate”  

* Two people spying on each other through binoculars and talking to each other by writing on poster paper and their guns. * 

Great, I am sold. I started to wonder, how can two people spend a year not talking to anyone? Also Miles Teller and Anya-Taylor Joy, two beautiful actors that aren’t controversial? Perfect! 

Scott Dickerson has given viewers a pandemic romance, only that wasn’t the intention was it? For a horror enthusiast like Dickerson, the creator of “The Black Phone”, “Sinister”, “Hellraiser”, I will give props to Scott Derrickson and Apple TV for Anya-Taylor Joy, playing Drasa, and Miles Teller, playing Levi. I may not be a horror fan, yet this film I tolerated. But what the hell type of genre does “The Gorge” fit into? 

What if the Cold War was just cut down to two people stationed on opposite sides of a mountain separated by a mysterious gorge? The east side was America and the west side was the Soviet Union. And what if instead of nuclear weapons, both sides protected the one thing that could wipe out humanity: the hollow men virus, the monsters that are trying to escape the gorge?  Does it fit the science Fiction/apocalyptic? Check! 

If you were the only two people who were guarding the world from death and no one knew, wouldn’t that be a lonely life to live? Almost indispensable, with no attachments, nothing, and no one left behind. What’s to stop you from being attracted to the one person who is just as isolated as you are, also a soldier, but contact is forbidden? Definitely fits romance. To top it off, have you seen the posters? They give off “Adrift” vibes with the foreheads touching and no reveal of the hollow men. Considering almost half of the movie was just sparks from the east and west sides, and I’m not just talking about the machine guns. 

BUT…can “The Gorge” be considered a thriller and much less horror? Does it have the chilling power of films like “World War Z” or “The Walking Dead”? The Guardian called the monsters in the film an “aphrodisiac in silly horror” The Collider described the never-before-seen duo actors as “a ridiculous and romantic monster mash-up.” Did the use of multi-genre plots help the film reach its intended audience? Or further ruin the originality of what is considered horror, thriller, science fiction, and romance? 

“The Gorge” was inspired by the gunplay action of horror video games like Until Dawn and Silent Hill. The film’s breathtaking scenery and the creatures that lurk deep within were inspired by a Polish painter, Zdzislaw Beksinski, known for his fever dream of “eerie beauty” certainly the vibe of the movie. But could the movie have been split into a romance movie and an action movie? Was the romance necessary? 

* Spoiler alerts after this line * 

The film could have gone many ways after these backstories: Drasa and Levi could be trying to weaponize the gorge themselves for their government, both sides having the key to a disease like nuclear war. Or what if Levi and Drasa have to go into the gorge sooner instead of 40 mins before the end of the film and maybe cure the Hollowmen instead of blowing up the gorge. Maybe Drasa shouldn’t have jumped after Levi and instead, there was a second plot to invade the United States. Despite all the genre-blending, the plot didn’t live up to my expectations, the ending felt very rushed. If anything, it encouraged me to watch Everything Everywhere All at Once Again, a film critically acclaimed to be good at genre-blending.  

A blockbuster-winning film that sums up multi-genre films is about an everything bagel. “Everything Everywhere All at Once” carries such a rich story relatable to many immigrant families coming to a country of hard to reach opportunities and their child navigating the Western culture despite being brought up differently. It’s got action, comedy, science fiction, adventure, drama, LGBTQ, dark comedy, absurdist fiction, and martial arts. 

Despite this movie’s success, it challenges genre blending in an awkwardly confusing story almost with the last 20 minutes of the movie to explain its plot. Maybe that was the point? 

Could Everything Everywhere set the precedent for more genre-blending at its maximum? “The Gorge”, although produced 3 years later, complicates the plot with multiple genres setting viewers up for an unsatisfying and delayed climax. Genre-blending can be dangerous since while reaching a wider audience is good, it affects the progression of the film and viewers' attention. The boundaries of single genre films are being pushed and depending on the plot of the story, can overwhelm the audience's experience.

As much of a fever dream this movie was, it held such a lasting impact on audiences of all ages, but only after watching it twice did the plot become clear to me. Why a bagel? I get the bagel choice but I don’t get how everything is meaningless. Each frame of the bagel black hole scenes were very cool and cultish but were more abstract than my mind could handle. The several plots I could pick up on all were relationships that Evelyn had to fix as a wife, daughter, mother, and hard working immigrant woman all of which could have been resolved without a bagel and science fiction. But then, would the film be mundane and boring? Yes. Forgive me, but why wasn’t the genre “Family” included? Family is what started this whole plot in the first place. 

The directors and writers really packed on the comedy. I couldn’t stop laughing everytime someone transported themselves to another universe, intrusive thoughts for the win! The scifi itself reminded me of The Matrix and Inception the way that our consciousness and perspective are manipulated. But I lost track of what the movie was about. All the action and the hyperflashing distracted me, making me wonder what the moral of the movie was. Or maybe confusion is what makes it a great movie? 

Films aren’t as simple as they used to be, like Harry Met Sally, which is known to be romance. Simple can lead to predictable and less enticing for the audience but simple gets rid of the unnecessary plots and rushed endings. Are we losing great plotlines to underdeveloped sneak attacks and special effects? Or is genre-blending to the max the future of films?