Mark Reviews Movies: THE DEEPER YOU DIG

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Review by Mark Dujsik | June 4, 2020

Made by a familial team of filmmakers, The Deeper You Dig gives us two tonally and aesthetically distinct halves of a story of the supernatural, connected by the murder of a teenage girl. One of those halves is decidedly stronger than the other, but this grim and macabre film is still impressive as a whole, especially considering its obvious budgetary limitations.

Outside a small town, there are two houses, separated by a stretch of road in the woods. One has been abandoned for decades and is currently being renovated by house-flipper Kurt, played by co-writer/co-director (as well as composer, editor, and co-cinematographer) John Adams. The other is occupied by Ivy, played by co-writer/co-director (as well as producer) Toby Poser (who's married to Adams), and her daughter Echo, played by Zelda Adams (who is the couple's daughter, receives a separate co-directing credit, and served as the film's co-cinematographer with her father).

Driving home drunk after stopping by a bar in town one night, Kurt hits something with his car. He checks and discovers Echo, who went out sledding, apparently dead. He brings the teen's body back to his house, puts her in the tub, and is shocked when the girl suddenly awakens. Kurt puts his hand over Echo's face until her struggling ceases (The actors' real-life relationship makes this scene even more disturbing).

As for the two sides of this tale, one follows Kurt, as he buries the girl's body and tries to forget his heinous crimes. The other follows Ivy, a medium who has lost her faith, as she tries to re-connect to the spiritual realm and learn her daughter's fate.

Kurt's story takes a Poe-like turn when Echo's ghost appears (her face at times sunken and hollowed from decomposition), taunting and tormenting her killer's burdened conscience. Meanwhile, Ivy's story leans into the surreal, as she travels into the world between life and death, which gives her visions of her own feelings of remorse. Gradually, Ivy's psychic insights lead her to suspect her neighbor.

Each side of the story is engaging in its own way, although the breakdown of Kurt's psyche from a supernatural or imagined phantom of his sins is particularly clever and dramatically satisfying. While the film's climax and resolution are a bit too rushed, The Deeper You Dig, an obvious labor of love, is a confidently crafted and often creepy examination of the horrors of guilt.

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