THE DEEPER YOU DIG (2019)

Studio:      Dark Sky Films
Director:    Toby Poser, John Adams
Writer:      Toby Poser, John Adams
Producer:  Toby Poser
Stars:     Toby Poser, Zelda Adams, John Adams, Shawn Wilson, Joan Poser, Inderpreet Singh Khangura, Bob Lane, Izzy Figueredo

Review Score:

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Summary:

A grieving mother and a guilty man separately confront haunting visions following the tragic death of a teenage girl.

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Synopsis:     Show/Hide Spoilers

While driving drunk on a dark country road, contractor Kurt Miller hits his neighbor Ivy Allen’s 14-year-old daughter Echo as she sleds at night. Believing her to be dead, Kurt brings Echo home to the abandoned house he is renovating to secretly bury her. When he discovers she is still alive, Kurt panics and suffocates Echo to death.

Formerly a gifted psychic who lost her faith, Ivy gives a sham tarot card reading to Mrs. Minskey, who is desperate to contact her dead husband Ivan. Upon returning home to find Echo missing, Ivy calls the police.

Detective Jay Sanford and Detective Davide question Kurt about Echo’s disappearance. Kurt denies even knowing Echo.

While working at home or driving in his car, Kurt repeatedly hears the song “Ain’t We Got Fun” suddenly playing on the radio. Kurt also sees Ivy searching for her daughter throughout town, but he avoids her. Kurt later buries Echo’s body in the woods.

Ivy comes to see Kurt, who continues to deny even knowing who Echo is. Ivy hears Echo’s voice whispering when she leaves.

Ivy becomes alarmed when a bloody occult symbol signifying the seven circles appears in Echo’s sketchbook. Ivy realizes her daughter is dead and is reaching out from another realm.

Kurt finds a mutilated dog carcass in his house. He also follows whispers that lead him to a brief encounter with Echo’s ghost. Kurt shoots his radio to stop its haunting sounds.

Ivy researches the seven circles symbol as it relates to the afterlife. Ivy performs a tarot reading for herself in which she continually draws The Hanged Man.

Kurt reburies Echo after he finds her corpse poking up through the forest floor. Echo’s ghost taunts Kurt for not digging deep enough. Kurt digs up Echo again, saws her into pieces, and dumps the body parts down a well.

Ivy asks her former protégé Dell about the seven circles. Dell warns Ivy about exploring the seven circles because she turned her back on her calling as a medium. Ivy explains she is willing to pay the price to contact Echo. Dell presents Ivy with a box that transports her into a vision where a faceless man feeds her animal entrails while paralyzed.

Kurt sees Echo’s ghost again. Echo instructs Kurt to tell her mother what he did.

Ivy drives to a bridge. Echo appears in front of Ivy’s car and briefly speaks through the radio before vanishing. Ivy suddenly wakes in the river below from having jumped while entranced.

Still plagued by haunting visions and whispers, Kurt goes to see Ivy. Ivy gives Kurt an ominous tarot reading. Kurt leaves in confusion after inexplicably urinating in Ivy’s toilet while sitting down instead of standing up.

Ivy experiences a vision of giving a sham tarot reading to a doppelganger dressed as a clown. Ivy transports to a second vision when she slams down Dell’s box after leaving her trance.

Kurt begins talking to himself in Echo’s words. Kurt threatens to kill Ivy if Echo doesn’t get out of his head. Kurt repeats, “I am Kurt” to convince himself of his identity. Kurt vomits blood and maggots before unwittingly singing “Ain’t We Got Fun” to himself.

Ivy comes home from communing with Echo’s ghost in the forest to find Kurt waiting with a jack-o-lantern. Ivy remarks that Echo used to like carving pumpkins at Halloween. Kurt becomes suddenly confused as to why he is in Ivy’s driveway. Kurt goes home and sketches Ivy in Echo’s drawing style.

Ivy invites Kurt to go hunting behind his house. Kurt unknowingly makes cryptic references to completing the seven circles of death. Kurt also says, “I’m almost here.” After failing to assure himself of his identity, Kurt embraces Ivy. Ivy hears Echo whisper, “I love you.”

Ivy gives herself another tarot card reading. Ivy has a vision of herself collapsed next to a dead deer and then has a vision of Kurt sledding like Echo did.

Ivy calls Detective Sanford to tell him about the psychic signs Echo gave her and to relay her suspicion that Kurt is Echo’s killer. Sanford dismisses Ivy’s claims.

Ivy returns to Kurt’s house where she finds Kurt’s name painted on several walls. Ivy attacks a vision of Kurt that laughingly transforms into Echo. A second vision of Kurt saws off his own head. The real Kurt attacks Ivy, initiating a physical fight.

Ivy downs Kurt by stabbing him in his side with a screwdriver. Kurt draws Ivy closer by speaking like Echo. Kurt uses the distraction to knock Ivy unconscious.

Kurt drags Ivy out to the well to saw her up. Ivy suddenly recovers, removes the screwdriver, and uses it to stab Kurt in his eye. Through Kurt, Echo says, “we won” just before Ivy beats Kurt unconscious.

Back at home, Ivy presents Echo’s favorite coffee drink to Kurt across her kitchen table. With a bandage over his eye, Kurt thanks Ivy in Echo’s voice.

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Review:

No offense to the person who wrote its entry in the Fantasia Film Festival guide, but the copy for “The Deeper You Dig” included a single term that made me consider stepping over the movie entirely. That term was “DIY.”

There was a time when I considered any genre film fair game for critical coverage. Then I became so burned out by the awful amateur attempts clogging the direct-to-streaming market that, for the sake of saving my sanity, I finally cut all cords with the lowest levels of filmmaking in the horror world. I’m talking specifically about “Do It Yourself” movies made in backyards with a cast and crew that can be counted on one hand. When I would write about homemade horror, I’d use the phrase “friends and family production” to glibly describe a cheapo effort where inexperienced actors were just a director’s buddies, slapdash camerawork induced eyestrain, and the entire thing looked put together during random free time for the cost of an average bag of groceries.

In “The Deeper You Dig’s” case, “friends and family production” remains an accurate descriptor, but it is not worn as a slur. Toby Poser, John Adams, and their daughter Zelda Adams do almost everything on their homegrown dramatic thriller, from writing, directing, and producing to cinematography, music, and editing.

What sets them apart from the glut of aspiring upstarts producing forgettable flotsam on a shoestring? The Adams Family is actually good, very good even, at what they do. Don’t let its “DIY” nature deter you like it almost did me. Anyone interested in true get-your-hands-dirty guerrilla filmmaking ought to find “The Deeper You Dig” fascinating as an impressive indie accomplishment as well as a narrative.

Although underlying themes are not, the plot is relatively simple. Kurt is a lonely contractor whose days are spent renovating a remote house while nights are occupied by boilermakers at a bar. Ivy is a faithless former medium who now gives sham tarot readings for 50 bucks. She has a loving relationship with her goth-but-good-girl teenage daughter Echo, who’s anxious to sled in the snow at night.

Unfortunately, Echo’s outdoor excursion coincides with Kurt driving home drunk on a country road. Tragedy ensues, although not exactly as you might expect, filling one mother with grief and one man with guilt.

Kurt and Ivy’s respective roads take them down different paths of haunting visions and strange suspicions. The sudden appearance of an occult symbol drives Ivy to explore an ethereal realm existing alongside reality. While she wants to connect with her daughter, Kurt wants Echo out of his head, as the girl’s ghost demands repentance in a manner poised to drive the man mad. Kurt and Ivy then connect in a series of unusual confrontations blurring the line between life and death, which is precisely where Echo wants them to meet.

Let’s get nags out of the way, since there are fewer of those than there are points of praise. Car windows could use screens to prevent bright, snowy exteriors from bleeding lens exposure. But that’s the kind of disposable detail acceptably sacrificed by virtue of “The Deeper You Dig” being made by neophytes instead of industry veterans. Technical execution mostly maintains consistently professional quality, with exceptional winter landscapes adding visual mileage to break up sparseness in the settings.

Acting also leans a little green, though that applies more to incidental appearances. You don’t need end credits to confirm that the man playing the convenience store clerk actually is The Adams Family’s local convenience store clerk. Fortunately, side characters don’t have much more to do than make small talk while working a register or something, so their blips don’t read as real blemishes either.

The three leads aren’t immune to bites of amateurism in their performances, yet they all bloom into believable personalities in short order. When Kurt gets into skullduggery in the woods, John Adams makes sure to react to the sound of a passing car, which may have been happenstance or may have been added intentionally via foley. Either way, “The Deeper You Dig” remembers to take time so minor moments like these, along with other camera cutaways, develop a sense of realism. The movie isn’t strictly focused on moving between beats in straight lines, which is how it elevates make-believe into an intangible aesthetic you can accept as authentic.

Conversely, this means “The Deeper You Dig” requires viewers to be patient so its atmosphere can be appreciated. It’s a minimalist movie made more from mood than from fiction or spectacle. While no one will be bowled over with action, that doesn’t mean tension is absent. During its denouement, the film wanders overmuch into interpretive incoherence regarding Ivy’s visions and some symbology that can be difficult to decipher. Yet even when it wobbles, suspense stays strong enough to keep a coldly unsettling texture underneath everything.

Frankly, I don’t think I’ve seen a microbudget movie use Spartan style for psychologically suggestive storytelling this well since Mike Flanagan’s “Absentia” (review here). “The Deeper You Dig” is a little raw. It’s also a little weird. But its eerie emotional effectiveness and surprising cinematic competency have renewed my hopes that there are still gems to be discovered in that subsection of indie horror otherwise overwhelmed with DIY dreck.

Review Score: 75

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