The Gorge (2025)

Director(s): Scott Derrickson

Writer(s): Zach Dean

Starring: Miles Teller, Anya Taylor-Joy, Sigourney Weaver

Now, it’s no secret that I’m a sucker for a good romance story within a horror flick. There’s something about the circumstance of bloodshed and terror that makes a blossoming romance that much more believable and the stakes that much higher, so it becomes a much more enjoyable experience. Having said that, the chemistry between Miles Teller and Anya Taylor-Joy in The Gorge is just RIDICULOUS. I mean, I was watching this flick on a plane using my phone and I was immersed in the story because of the strong connection these two had throughout the movie. At first, I wasn’t even sure if this thing was a horror flick because it was definitely teetering more towards Sci-Fi when you learned about the premise but as the plot thickened, the movie turned into a Monster-Sci/Fi-Adventure-Romance! I mean it folks; it actually covered all those categories in satisfying fashion; the movie has as many jump scares as it did sweet moments as it did creature features as it did action sequences.

First and foremost, I need to come clean and admit I was a bit jealous of Miles Teller because I’ve had a major crush on Anya Taylor-Joy for years now and the dude’s chemistry with her is second to none, so I concede (with a heavy heart lol). Teller plays Levi, a highly skilled and decorated military operative selected to spend a year of his life maintaining and guarding a gorge in an undisclosed area. The movie does a great job being vague in the nature of the work and all you know is that it’s highly classified, very important and goes back for decades. Sigourney Weaver plays your typical big boss of a corporation who gives Levi the gig and of course, there are all sorts of shadiness within meeting her character for the first five minutes but aren’t all business leaders seen this way at this point (thanks for attending my Ted Talk)? Back to Levi though, Teller plays the character with a haunting vulnerability that sets up his character to be open to finding purpose which intertwines perfectly with the plot. It’s obvious his character has PTSD from his past life and that he’s not really living but simply moving forward in life. It’s not over the top, but there’s a certain melancholy to the character that makes him relatable to anyone who is fully functional as a contributor but lost as a human (too deep? Lol).

Anya Taylor-Joy’s character on the other hand, Drasa is a great compliment to Levi, in which she’s also a highly skilled operative but portrays a warmth to her that is quite endearing…yes, I’m biased because I find her to be warm at all times…okay, need to focus lol Her character is much more empathetic and you can see that she values connection and by the time Drasa is introduced to Levi, since she’s also stationed at the same gorge, you can tell she finds herself at a crossroads on what she wants to do with her life, so in that sense she is also lost, which is an underlying theme with these two characters. This sort of loneliness that desperate emo kids try to convey to get attention seems so seamless with these two actors since they portray it in a way that makes the audience more sympathetic rather than annoyed, which to me, is quite a feat since I’m usually the first one to roll my eyes at the over-dramatic.

You find out in the movie that both Levi and Drasa’s purpose in observing the gorge is much more tied to the macabre and even steeped in government conspiracy, but I’d be lying if I said that was the most intriguing part of the movie. The treasure of the movie truly is the segments where the both of them are getting to know each other in the midst of the strange things brewing below the gorge. It’s an interesting situational plot, where the characters have limitations on how they communicate (trying not to spoil the overall plot too much here) which makes their connection more fun and feel much more genuine. The constraints that they have in order to get to know each other allows the audience to feel for them in the highs and lows of their growing relationship and you find yourself cheering for them the closer they get to each other. There are plenty of cute moments in this flick that I won’t get into, but the build and chemistry are significantly important to the overall plot because as with all relationships, a challenge awaits them that will test their bond.

Without spoilers, these two get themselves into a pickle (that’s the technical term, right?) involving monstrous creatures and even more monstrous humans. The movie was masterful at setting up a believable connection between the two characters and then throwing incredible challenges at them that tests their newly found bond to the point where the audience is invested in seeing these two succeed. I get that this is nothing new and there are plenty of movies that use the exact same formulation, but I suppose it’s been a while since I’ve been this invested in two characters that have this kind of chemistry.

Movies like this are always fun because you walk into it with some sort of expectation of the macabre and although the film delivers on that end, I was blindsided with a love story and the fact that one half of that love story consists of someone I adore, that makes it MUCH more satisfying. Okay, I swear that’ll be my last Anya Taylor-Joy compliment…Her eyes are amazing…dammit…okay, I’m done.

Life is FAR more interesting when we take interest in things that scare us.