Everything Wrong With 12 Feet Deep (2016) + Movie Review!
12 Feet Deep, originally titled The Deep End is a 2016/17 American thriller directed by Matt Eskandari and written by Eskandari and Michael Hultquist. Inspired by true events, two sisters are trapped under the fiberglass cover of an Olympic sized public pool and must brave the cold and each other to survive the harrowing night.
While everyone is flocking to see 47 Meters Down I was at home watching 12 Feet Deep, indicting 2017 is the year of measurement titles and movies about women trapped in water. Next movie they’ll release is likely to be called 139 Kilometres South and will centre around a mother and daughter trapped in a cave filling up with water, or something like that. Gotta keep up with the trends. This movie should be called 12 Convenient Clichéd Feet Down because this movie was nothing but a series of thriller clichés and convenient plot choices which hold no logical basis in reality and only serve as ways of getting the characters from point A to point B whether it makes sense or not. While this film has been labelled as “inspired by true events” after much research I can confirm this film takes no inspiration from any single event. In fact the director in an interview when asked about the true story basically admits this is just an idea pulled out of his own head and is not based on a real story. This movie has been called “unique” and I beg to differ. The concept of 12 Feet Deep is no different to 2010’s Frozen which sees 3 people trapped on a chairlift during a blizzard or 2017’s Serpent which has a husband and wife trapped in a tent with a snake….i’m going to pretend that last one doesn’t exist. I will now breakdown everything that happens in this film as to better point out how severely flawed it is. So if you don’t wish to know what happens, stop reading NOW. Also for those who wish to have fun while reading this, take a shot every time I use the word “convenient” or “cliché”, trust me you’ll be drunk in no time.
The film starts off revealing that Bree played by Nora-Jane Noone has diabetes, yup, it’s the give a character a life threatening medical condition so that when she is in danger later it’ll be that much worse for her cliché. Don’t pretend you’ve never heard of it, it’s been done a million times. Tobin Bell who I guess plays a manager is around for 5 minutes, long enough to set up that the female janitor is on parole, a fact that will be conveniently made relevant later. Cut to Bree debating whether to put her engagement ring in her bag or not, this is a huge piece of the plot that the entire film hinges on. Cut to sisters Bree and Jonna (played by Alexandra Park) searching for the lost ring which has magically ended up in the pool. The ring is stuck in a grate, a grate that is so large the ring should have fallen straight through but is conveniently stuck in the gap and yet managed to be spotted by Jonna despite this being 12 feet under the surface and they are standing on the side of the pool. Due to the pool closing any sane person would have gone to the manager and asked for the chance to get the ring, but that would make the entire film irrelevant, so naturally Bree dives in to get the ring. This takes longer than it should prompting her sister to dive in and help her, something that was entirely unnecessary as this isn’t a two-man job but the writers had to get them both in the pool somehow. Tobin Bell is closing the facility for the holiday weekend and despite the camera showing his view of the pool and it being completely obvious that from this vantage point you would be able to see anyone in the pool he sees nothing and closes the fiberglass lid on them. But aren’t those things super slow and wouldn’t you hear the motors, giving you enough time to get out? Yes, you would, but don’t worry, the writers got that covered by having a random pump start in the grate that sucks in Jonna’s hair. Ah yes, the hair pulled into a pump cliché. Even though as we are watching it, it is clearly evident her hair is not being pulled down and she is in no danger, poor directing right there. But hey, the illusion was enough to explain why they didn’t get out in time and are now trapped in the water.
Now starts the “how do we get out?” segment of the film. Where Bree is proactive and Jonna just wants to bitch about everything, because cursing at the water is really going to solve their problem. Jonna quickly turns into the moody sister and because they are trapped in a confined space it is now time for the bringing up unresolved family drama cliché. What thriller would be complete if the people trapped together didn’t have issues? I mean where’s the fun in being functioning adults, right? But this is boring, how do we really pick up the tension? I know, by revealing that moody sister found the ring and tossed it into the pool thereby being the cause of them being trapped, wow the writers are loving these convenient plots. Well since the girls are trapped let’s kill time by talking about that time our father died in a fire or those times when we were kids and he sexually abused us, because nothing perks up your spirits like reminiscing over childhood trauma. Also, insert victims of child abuse cliché followed by the one sister grows to be a functioning human being while the other becomes an alcoholic who resents her sister’s functionality cliché. Maybe there should be double shots for “cliché”, but by the end of this readers may end up with severe alcohol poisoning.
Hold the phone ladies and gentlemen, there is hope at the end of this tunnel! As the sisters have discovered a perfectly cut rectangular hole in the fiberglass. Is there any rational reason as to why there is one hole in this entire cover? No, but it will be convenient to their escape later so writers threw it in anyway. Now it’s time for Bree’s diabetes to kick in. Wait, you’re only just telling your sister you’ve had diabetes for 3 years? You didn’t think to tell her 3 years ago or maybe your mother would have told her in that time frame? No? Of course not because we need an excuse for Jonna to step up and be the hero at some point later in the film, stop asking stupid questions. But hold on, Bree seems to be a diabetic with no knowledge of diabetes. While informing her sister of her condition she says her blood sugar is low and she needs her insulin or she will fall into a coma. Uh, wrong move writers! Had the writers taken two seconds to jump onto google they would learn that a diabetic becoming hypoglycaemic (meaning their blood sugar is dropping) immediately needs food to introduce more sugar into their system. If Bree was to take a shot of insulin while her blood sugar was dropping this would force her body to use up what little sugar she has left speeding up the process and forcing her to fall into a diabetic coma and then die. I guess this proves these writers really know absolutely nothing about anything. Also, we’re not even half way through this and the movie is yet to live up to its name “12 Feet Deep” as the sisters have spent most of this movie standing in the shallow end of the pool and having no real reason to go to the deep end. Did no one think this through?
By this point salvation has arrived. The female janitor played by Diane Farr, has shown up and will now save the day. Well that doesn’t sound right, we’ve got about another 40 minutes left in this movie, they can’t be saved this early. Have no fear, writers conveniently decided to write former parole janitor as a complete and utter sadistic nut job who uses this opportunity to extort the girls for money. Janitor says if they give her their phone pin she can call for help. Why doesn’t she have her own phone? Why doesn’t she go into the office and use the pool’s phone? This is a public facility; land lines are expected. But again, that would make this too easy, so the girls lacking any brains hand over the pin which gets them nowhere. Janitor tries to be smart and turn off all the security cameras in the facility. How does she know how to do any of this? And she didn’t even really turn off he security cameras, she just turned off the screens which show the feed. But somehow this method works, now janitor demands the pin to Bree’s bank card in exchange for letting them out. This is the only time Jonna has the smarts to say, “don’t do it” but Bree doesn’t listen and crazy janitor is now off to empty her account. But not before teaching them a lesson for getting trapped in a pool (don’t look for sense here, she’s just a bitch) by turning off the heating to the water. This has been fully heated for hours, yet as soon as psycho turns off the heat the women instantly begin shivering like they’re about to die from hypothermia. That much warm water could stay warm for maybe a couple hours or more after the heat is turned off yet they react immediately. Another poor choice by the director. For reasons that lack any logic, crazy janitor returns to taunt the young women, promising to let them out but never actually doing so. Instead she spends her time verbally abusing them and blaming them for all the misery she experienced in her life. At this point I’m not sure what I’m meant to be taking from this moment. Jonna decides it would be a fantastic idea to piss off their only chance of getting out, and manages to stab psycho janitor in the ear with a piece of plastic they had broken off a ledge earlier. How many of you thought that would urge her to help them? None of you? You’d be correct, instead this encourages a pissed off psycho to turn on the pumps in the pool and force extreme amounts of chlorine into the pool…..but this is a 50 meter wide pool, they could just go to the centre of the pool and stand there and be unaffected by the pumps but that doesn’t sound very dramatic. So, the director completely forgetting where he has set this film now makes the pool appear as small as possible so it seems they have no way of escaping the pumps, how convenient? (How many shots are you up to?) Screaming that this is killing them psycho feels guilty and turns off the pumps, naturally because it is too early in the film for them to bite the dust. Psycho janitor now takes off with Bree’s engagement ring to pawn it for money, this is probably the stupidest and most successful extortion attempt I’ve ever seen and how is this woman not running to seek medical attention? She just got shanked in the eardrum for god sake.
With Bree’s condition worsening by the second and us still not knowing how long these women have been in the pool (I’m going to guess roughly 7 hours) Bree decides now to be the moody one and demands to be alone…..you’re trapped in a pool together, not much alone time possible. But this is how we create more tension. Jonna feels so guilty she’s ready to kill herself and Bree must once again make her feel better. Psycho Janitor returns and after receiving a lovely pep talk from Bree decides to let them out. 20 minutes left on the clock, how will the writers prevent this from being a success? By having janitor not know the correct passcode to retract the fiberglass. Instead of being nice enough to call the police because she illogically believes calling help and doing the right thing will get her sent back to prison she decides to leave them to die and bail. Genius writing! Well now hope is lost and Bree is knocking on coma’s door. In her last moments of lucidity she uses her energy to confess to her sister she killed their father so he would stop abusing Jonna. Why was this relevant? Well because Jonna needs to be motivated to be her sister’s hero now duh. Cliché role reversal. Jonna now slips into hero mode, cause apparently, she couldn’t do it several hours ago and apparently secret family homicide is a great motivator. Eager to free them Jonna dives to the bottom of the pool to pull up the same grate from earlier hoping to use it to break the fibreglass, yet stupidly continues to stand on it while she pulls, well this seems ineffective, but wow it worked! Oh fuck logic, who needs it? This pool conveniently uses metal grates despite the fact they would likely corrode in a chlorine pool and pollute the water, but the girls need it to be metal so they can escape, wow these writers thought of everything. Success! Thanks to that conveniently placed hole in the fiberglass Jonna was able to smash right through, but instead of using her fingers to pull down and break the rest the writers decided the girls need to suffer a bit more so have Jonna squeeze out her whole arm despite it not fitting just so she can slice her arm open on the sharp edges. Gotta have blood in a thriller cliché.
Hooray! They’re free, but Bree is still on the brink of coma/death and yet Jonna still hasn’t thought to grab a phone and call 911, oh right because we still have about 8 minutes to kill. It’s ok, give her, her insulin which you have no idea how to administer and in the real world would kill her but for the sake of this movie is going to revive her. Yay she’s revived! Oh great, now psycho janitor has returned because she has come to the moronic conclusion that somehow, they would get out (how did she form this conclusion? This whole movie is a fucking miracle. Also wouldn’t owning a hand gun be a violation of her parole?) and because of this she now must shoot and kill them so they don’t turn her into the cops for being a bitch. Here’s why this is stupid, these women had no idea what her name was, what she looked like or even that she was a janitor. They knew she worked there but had no proof and didn’t even know her role, why was she so convinced they’d get out and dob them in? Oh, right the writers, I keep forgetting. But it’s ok, Jonna will give the lovely pep talk that will save the day, and for being so understanding psycho janitor will now return the diamond ring. This ring is practically its own character at this point. With help on the way, Bree saved and Jonna now returning the favour for Bree killing their dad and returning the diamond engagement ring and sharing some mirrored dialogue from earlier in the film they can now be one big happy family.
I hope the readers haven’t been drunken into a coma, though I would have liked to drink myself into a coma after watching this train wreck of a movie. Not an ounce of sound logic or reason to be found. I choose to make this comparison between movies and cooking. If you’re cooking a big meal with lots of elements, there is some room for error because people can at least be distracted if there are good elements there. But simple dishes are the hardest, when you only have 1 or 2 elements to work with there is nowhere to hide. You either must completely nail it and make it amazing or it is a failure. This movie was that simple dish and it was a failure. With the entire movie taking place in one space there was nowhere it could hide, so every mistake, every cliché and poor choice was on full display and it was excruciating to witness.
To this films advantage Nora-Jane Noone and Alexandra Park who carry this movie on their shoulders have superb acting skills. They both delivered fantastic performances given the small amount of material they had to work with and very little environment to work off. This is challenging to an actor and both women stepped up to the plate, took the material and really gave it everything they had. They were completely committed to their roles, it is just a shame that the movie and their roles were so flawed. There is a concept here that could have worked. With some tweaking or a different and far more logical approach I think this movie could have taken things past clichés and past convenience and make this something truly extraordinary, but the director settled for less than mediocrity and called it something unique when really it is just climbing on the backs of decades of films that have a lot of the same material and far greater execution.
This is a mess of a movie and the only thing anyone can take from it or even take from everything that I have written is that it makes for a rather affective drinking game, but with the level of drinking this film would induce I’m sure it would lead to death and for that reason I do not recommend this movie, in fact if this movie was being watched by CinemaSins the sin count would be well over 200. For all the reasons above I give 12 Feet Deep a rating of 0.5/5 crystal balls.
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