The Gorge (Scott Derrickson, 2025)

Miles Teller and Anya Taylor-Joy in The Gorge

Cast: Miles Teller, Anya Taylor-Joy, Sigourney Weaver, Sope Dirisu, William Houston. Screenplay: Zach Dean. Cinematography: Dan Laustsen. Production design: Rick Heinrichs. Film editing: Frédéric Thoroval. Music: Trent Reznor, Atticus Ross. 

The Gorge is a horror/sci-fi thriller so formulaic that although it has a screenplay credited to Zach Dean, it could have been scripted by AI. The heroes are a couple of loners played by Miles Teller and Anya Taylor-Joy, who predictably fall in love after being on the opposite sides of the titular chasm that separates them. The villain is the military-biotech industrial complex, personified by Sigourney Weaver, who seems to be making a late career out of movies about supersoldiers. None of it makes much sense, but if you want a movie that just chugs along filling time, you could do worse. 

The Black Phone (Scott Derrickson, 2022)

 

Cast: Mason Thames, Madeleine McGraw, Ethan Hawke, Jeremy Davies, E. Roger Mitchell, Troy Rudeseal, James Ransone, Miguel Cazarez Mora. Screenplay: Scott Derrickson, C. Robert Cargill, based on a story by Joe Hill. Cinematography: Brett Jutkiewicz. Production design: Patti Podesta. Film editing: Frédéric Thoraval. Music: Mark Korven.

Horror movies usually don’t scare me: I know their tricks and tells, and as an amateur film scholar I’m as absorbed in the techniques of camerawork and editing as I’m involved with the story. So The Black Phone, which blends two horror movie tropes, the serial killer and the ghost story, never made me jump out of my seat or threatened to come back at me in my dreams. Still, it’s a good one, with some involving performances, especially by the young actors Mason Thames and Madeleine McGraw but also by the invaluable Ethan Hawke, even hidden behind some scary masks. It’s as much a story about the dark side of childhood – Finney (Thames) and Gwen (McGraw) are abused by their father, played by the usually creepy Jeremy Davies, and Finney is being bullied by some of classmates – as it is about predators and ghosts. But Scott Derrickson handles both sides of the story with finesse and without too many horror movie clichés.