The Deep House (2021)
Since YouTube has been kicking traditional broadcast media’s hiney lately, movies about YouTubers are obviously going to be a thing. Like 2021’s The Deep House, for instance.
Ben and Tina are urbex YouTubers on the line of The Proper People, or at least they want to be. They’ve got a long way to go, not only with viewership numbers, but with performance presence. For one thing, The Proper People don’t yell at each other when they explore abandoned buildings. For another, The Proper People don’t cut up or scare each other. At least, we don’t see them do it.
When Ben and Tina’s plans to dive in a French lake fall through, Ben gets a hot tip from Pierre, a grizzled older guy he meets at a food truck. Pierre knows where there’s an intact house deep in the lake, and if they’re willing they can go explore it. Pierre will even show them where to find it because he’s such a pal.
Once they’re below the surface Ben is downright nonchalant about the whole business but Tina is creeped out. She gets more creeped out as they continue exploring and the house turns out to have a very dark secret that may keep the two of them underwater longer than they intended. And then there’s the little matter of their tanks running out of oxygen.
Deep House looks great, especially for an indie. They spent money correctly here, that’s for sure—the house and other sets look intriguingly authentic. Plus there’s a convincing computer-generated catfish that swims in and around the submerged house, but everything is so dark and muddy it’s hard to tell that it’s not a real fish.
The film doesn’t lean too heavily on YouTuber stereotypes, thank goodness, although Ben cheerily says, “Comment, like, and subscribe!” to the camera before he and Tina really get going on their dive. Once stuff starts happening, he shuts up about likes and views, which turns out to be a mixed blessing. Ben is kind of a jerk, to be honest.
There’s an eerie out-of-body quality to underwater exploration, and The Deep House is like Bodie meets a Titanic dive meets The Blair Witch Project, and just about as scary as the latter. It leads the viewer along pretty gradually, and what’s seen is interesting even without the horror angle. It’s fun watching Ben and Tina checking out a box full of snowglobes and gawking at nineteen-eighties technology. It doesn’t last long, though, because we all know the movie’s gotta go somewhere.
The problem is that like Blair Witch, Deep House is not all that scary. It’s also predictable, even for those who aren’t into horror. There are the beginnings of scares and potential menace, but the stakes don’t raise enough at the right time or in the right way to bring anything to a climax. It drags the movie down to the point that it’s really tempting to keep checking the running time and wonder how things will wind up.
Plus the ending was a little disappointing. While it seems open-ended, it’s stuck at potential and doesn’t really satisfy.
The Deep House isn’t bad for what it is, but it might be best to expect amusement and mild thrills as opposed to heart-pounding suspense. Oh, and we can’t forget its obvious moral for all YouTubers and social media influencers: Certain risks are not worth it, even for clicks and likes.
The Deep House is available to stream on Amazon Prime. Rated TV-MA.
My grade: B-
Principal cast: James Jagger, Camille Rowe, Eric Savin
Directed and written by: Alexandre Bustillo and Julien Maury