"Deep" Review- 3/5 Stars
I have wanted to watch Deep for months, and decided to watch it one Saturday night recently. I was intrigued by the trailer and Netflix synopsis, although it looked a little scary and I normally avoid horror movies.
Deep centres on an insomniac medical school student named Jane. She takes care of her elderly grandmother and rebellious younger sister, June. When Jane discovers how deep in debt her family is, she considers dropping out of school. But her professor, Nichcha, insists that Jane continue her studies, and suggests participating in a paid study for a German pharmaceutical company. Jane and three other insomniac students (Win, the athlete; Cin, the influencer; and Peach, the gamer) join the study, which involves implanting a microchip in their brains to harvest a brain chemical called qratonin. The study has three levels, and each pays very well. The catch? If the students fall asleep for more than sixty seconds, the microchip might stop their hearts. And so begins four teenagers’ fight against sleep, because staying awake means staying alive.
The plot itself is interesting and terrifying; anything involving experiments gone wrong or evil doctors is enough to keep me awake at night. I know there are many ill-fated experiments that have happened throughout history, so the existence of detrimental experiments in real life scares me and is something I kept in the back of my mind while watching Deep.
I wasn’t exactly sure what to expect when I started this movie, but I certainly did not expect the first scene. The opening scene caught me off guard, and is quite unsettling. It is a powerful and attention-grabbing way to start Deep, although it could be triggering for some viewers and cause them to quickly abandon the film.
The protagonists are pretty one-dimensional, and they fit neatly into archetypes, as horror movie characters often do. For a horror movie, they spend too much time hanging out and laughing together. I feel that there are too many lighthearted moments in the movie, and this detracts from the overall sinister feeling that the trailer promises.
Deep has a romance side plot that definitely falls flat. Peach and Cin appear to be falling for one another, until *SPOILER* Peach is revealed to be Cin’s stalker. Jane kisses Win, then Win asks her out and she says she “doesn’t have time to deal with a relationship”. After Win undergoes level 3 for Jane and defends her to Peach on day 6, it appears that the two will fall in love. However, the writers never go back to this plotline, and that element of the movie disappears completely.
The best part of the movie is the climax. I found it to be intense and enjoyable. Day 6 is when things take a turn for the worse, and the scene where *SPOILER* all of the protagonists start hallucinating is quite terrifying. Cin (whose looks mean everything to her) sees dots appear on her face, Peach (for some reason?) is about to jump off a building, and Jane watches June bleed out and die. But by far the most disturbing is Win’s hallucination, where he watches his mom walk towards him and then shoot herself. This scene is dramatic and unsettling. I felt that the hallucinations should have meant more or been unpacked for viewers, to add more to the characters’ individual fears and personalities. After they all suffer individually, the teenagers start to go stir-crazy and go after each other. Having them trapped in the hospital room as they start to lose it is a terrifying element. In scary movies, I love tense scenes where the stress and fear gets to the protagonists and they start to take it out on each other. It’s a cliche I welcome and one that definitely scares me. Cin tries to leave and screams at everyone, while Win and Peach start to fight. This scene makes viewers ask, for a brief moment, if the characters will kill each other before the experiment kills them. However, the fight is resolved within a minute or so and the characters are quick to trust one another again.
This does not have much to do with the plot, but I assumed June would die, since she is the unnecessary, expendable side character, but she doesn’t. Her death would have spurred Jane to fight the drug company and could have taken the movie in a different direction that would have been interesting to see.
There are a few things I did not understand about Deep. One is why the group still hangs out with Peach after he is outed as Cin’s stalker. The reveal of him being the stalker is enough to cause Cin to faint and almost die, but the fallout and non-issue of it afterwards is unrealistic and frustrating. Another thing I did not understand is where June kept sneaking off to at the beginning of the movie. I expected this secret to be a major plot point later on, but it is never mentioned again. Maybe it is just supposed to set up her character as a rebellious teenager who causes trouble for Jane? Or maybe viewers are supposed to infer that she is at the pharmaceutical company? I don’t know.
I found Deep to be a bit predictable, including the twist ending. The surprise villain was someone I had suspected for most of the film, and to me, it was not as dramatic as the writers probably intended it to be. The villain is “evil” but has semi-understandable motives. Their backstory and motivation for starting the experiment makes sense logically, but somehow seems far-fetched.
The scene where *SPOILER* the mastermind stabs Jane with the anesthetic is cruel and scary, because they know she’ll fall asleep for more than sixty seconds and die.
I wonder how the villain *SPOILER* got the money to pay off the students through Hans Miller? That was confusing to me. Also, why would they discuss the adverse effects of insomnia in front of the students they later bribe to stay awake? Telling them all of these bad things would make them afraid of not sleeping, so I do not understand why they did this.
Also, I thought it was stupid that the heroes do not get paid for doing level 3 after suffering for a week straight. After being arrested, the villain should have been forced to compensate all of the victims, especially for the additional ordeal on days 6 and 7.
Overall, Deep’s premise is promising. It has the right amount of sci-fi and realism to make it unsettling. The concept of staying awake to stay alive is intriguing and thought-provoking. It makes the audience question what they would do in the protagonists’ position, and how far they are willing to go for money. It begs the question, “what are we, as humans, willing to sacrifice for financial gain”? There is an element of morality (both for the scientists and students) and medical ethics that could have been further explored to add depth and complexity. The ending feels rushed and there could have been a more satisfying conclusion if we saw the villain brought to justice. There were several elements that the creators tried to include but didn’t have time to flesh out (like the romance or Win’s mother’s death), and I felt this movie would have been better as a tv show. That way, there would be more time to explore side plots and delve into each character’s life and motivations.
*I’d like to point out that Deep was written and directed by a group of students, which I thought was cool. Perhaps they were inspired by their own struggles with student sleeplessness?
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