Originally I was going to review Deep Water, Adrian Lynne’s return to the erotic thriller. But that movie was so dull, I could not think of anything to write about.
However, the title did remind me of this one, so thank you Deep Water.
Written by Quinn Beswick,Josh Margolin and Benjamin Smolen, and directed by Nick Corirossi,
Deep Murder starts out as a one joke premise, but like the joke that you repeat until it is funny again, Deep Murder is a weird kind of success.
In the middle of a softcore erotica, one of the characters (Jerry O’Connell) is murdered. It falls to a collection of familiar archetypes - the MILF (Katie Aselton), her nerdy son (Quinn Beswick), the babysitter (Jessica Parker Kennedy), the Jock (Chris Redd), the private detective (Josh Margolin) and… a scientist (Stephanie Drake) - to solve the mystery.
Shot with soft focus and with the fade of an old VHS, Deep Murder initially feels like a short.
But once the murder takes place, the fuzz goes away. That murder also acts as a catalyst for every character slowing discover another dimension (in their case, a second one).
The characters begin to develop an awareness of their limitations - the scientist realizes her skills are inadequate; the Babysitter wonders why there are no kids at this house she babysits at.
This is where the film gets deeper - and also fumbles the ball a bit.
Deep Murder is super high concept and so the humor is super-specific. About midway through, as the characters began to evolve, it felt like the story was stronger than the laughs. A few of these arcs are great - the Babysitter’s evolution in the library is played completely straight, which makes her epiphany funnier - but it starts to feel a little too controlled.
I found the third act of the film interesting from the way it wants to interrogate the genre, but it was not that funny, and not particularly satisfying dramatically. I admire the film’s attempt to craft a proper story, but in tying off the movie’s threads, it loses that sense of surprise. It is just not as weird, and it took some of the fun out of it for me.
There are some genre beats which feel ignored - the prime example is the Jock’s personal revelation that he is gay, which follows his fatal stabbing. For a movie about archetypes gaining depth, this subplot feels weirdly out of step with the film’s broader ambitions.
There is also one character who feels out of step with the others - I could not track the character of the Detective. He seems to be smarter and less predictable than everyone else, in a way built for easy laughs rather than maintaining the film’s inner logic.
The movie is not consistently laugh-out-loud, but the cast are game (Christopher McDonald pops in for a small role as an oblivious businessman) and the concept is great.
Despite its flaws, Deep Murdser is just weird and specific enough to recommend watching at least once.
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