‘Into The Deep’ Review – Erotic Thriller Leaves You Out At Sea

Trauma, Trauma, Trauma, we see it portrayed repeatedly in Hollywood. The industry loves overusing it, but it starts to become really easy to spot the good and bad ones; unfortunately, Into the Deep doesn’t live up to all its thrills.

The story follows our star Jess (Ella-Rae Smith), who’s still fighting the loss of her mother, who died by drowning years ago. She wants to go out and party with friends at the beach and get away from her father’s issues. In doing so, she meets Ben (Mathew Daddario), who is charming; the two begin to kick it off passionately. But suddenly, things begin to unravel when Lexie (Jessica Alexander) crashes her jet ski into the boat. 

Directed by Kate Cox, Into the Deep just doesn’t quite get there from scene to scene. It’s a constant montage of near-drowning experiences for Jess that doesn’t provide any suspense to this thriller; the film tries so hard to serve that suspension but falls flat at delivering it. However, the camera provides some nice visuals that help the film stand out that way, so at least it’s visually exciting throughout, if nothing else.  

Jess feels like your average selfish character when we meet her, pushing away her father because he now has a relationship even after his wife died years ago. But here is Jess, who runs away with some dude who is clearly throwing red flags left and right, but that doesn’t stop her. She becomes unbearable to watch on the screen as she repeatedly makes all the wrong mistakes. She is boring and untextured of character; nothing about her makes you want to root for the girl.

All of these characters seem to hold secrets about each other; for instance, Lexie begins to remember who Ben is and starts to tell Jess he’s a liar and not a good person, but then Ben, of course, says it’s not true, making it seem Lexie is a crazy person. All these characters throw caution into the wind and constantly put themselves in danger, and as each performance by the actors is very different from scene to scene, it’s almost as if they reached their hands into a jar and picked their actions for that particular moment. It’s hard as the audience to feel anything for these characters or get any insight into them. 

The plot of this film paints so many ideas that are borderline controversial, and it seems like it does this on purpose. The film doesn’t really believe in its own ideas and what it’s trying to do. It tries to paint our character with traumas as the villain but then falls back on its own idea and tries backtracking everything it leads up to in the final act. Not only that, the finale ends are so predictable you can practically see it coming a mile away before it reaches it. 

The film has a premise that could have worked but doesn’t quite get there, it’s hard to get excited over anything that happens in the movie. There is very little suspense if any, and the characters are overwhelmingly stale at times. Even though the actors put forth a great performance for what they’re given, none of it pays off in the end. It runs with the trope about the same trauma we have seen on the screen repeatedly and doesn’t do anything new or great. If you expect some wild, fun crazy thrills, there are plenty of other films for that because this sexy erotic thriller isn’t a smooth sailing ship. Unfortunately, it just couldn’t find its wave to ride, and we were just left at sea with no answers. 

Into The Deep is currently available in select theaters and On Demand courtesy of Lionsgate.