Not sure about you but my week was not amazing; a few hard-lessons were learned, trust was broken, feelings were hurt—yes, I am purposely being vague on the details of my personal life because who do you think I am, [INSERT HERE name of latest celebrity with a tell-all book]? #noonecares #lifeistough—but all that paled in comparison to the hell of a week that our friend, Day, just had…
The Pool (2018) was a great horror movie from Thailand; the story was so full of twists and turns that by the end of it I was left feeling both in awe and exhausted, the former because it went above and beyond at exploring the subject matter and the latter because it really took the worst-case scenario to the extreme.
Here, let me show you the trailer so you know what I am talking about:
Day was just a regular guy with dreams of making it in the entertainment industry. His speciality? The art department. Was his job his entire world? Yes, yes it was.
These are other things you should know about Day: Today is his birthday and his girlfriend, Koi, is visiting him on set, you see, she not only brought him a sweet birthday present (a decorative egg with a plastic baby toy inside as, unbeknownst to him, she was pregnant and was going to surprise him with the happy news except that last minute she decides not telling him) but also stopped by to drop off Day’s dog, Lucky, as he was going to be an Extra on today’s commercial shoot (Day was broke and needed to supplement his income, thus having his dog be a working dog). What else… oh yes, Day is a diabetic who relies on insulin injections, he likes to smoke, and also enjoys his freedom and alone time… and this is exactly why he got himself into this huuuuuge trouble.
**SPOILERS AHEAD**
WARNING: CUT TO & LONG STORY SHORT ARE SAID REPEATEDLY, DO NOT USE THIS AS A DRINKING GAME CUZ YOU’LL DIE ;]
DAY ONE, it’s the day after the commercial shoot and Day decides to go back to the set to enjoy the diving swimming pool before it is closed for good. The pool is majestic—albeit the several props left behind by the crew the night prior—with crystal clear blue water, 6 meter deep (for us Americans, that is 19.69 feet deep) and, most importantly, it is all to himself. His production buddy and close friend, Mayom, stops by briefly to activate the pool drainage process and warns Day that he has to get out of the pool soon as the water level is going to start dropping; before saying goodbye and departing to his vacation, Mayom chains Lucky so he does not fall into the water while Day is lounging and having a good time, he also leaves an extra insulin syringe on a table by the pool so he can use it as soon as he gets out, and calls Pizza Hut delivery for his ‘hard-working’ friend. Cut to Day falling asleep on a float and, upon waking up, realizing that the water is now so low that he will have a hard time getting out (there were no built-in ladders) so he freaks out and, long story short, now defeated he falls asleep again on the float.
His girlfriend, Koi, surprises him and visits him again but since he is asleep she tries to be playful and, instead of waking him up, goes all the way up to the concrete diving board platform and starts getting ready to jump and dive when Lucky begins barking, waking up Day who immediately realizes what Koi is about to do and asks her to STOOOOOOP and she gets startled and slips, hitting her head badly and dropping into the water. Koi is not dead, but remains unconscious. Day not only has to deal with his own unfortunate situation, being stranded inside a now abandoned and draining pool with no access to his insulin, or to a working cell, or to his dog, but also has to deal with his unconscious girlfriend. Cut to Day yelling at his chained dog for barking so loudly and disturbing his girlfriend and later realizing he was barking to scare away a crocodile, yes, a crocodile! Long story short, the crocodile also slips and drops into the water.
DAY TWO, the pool is completely drained now, the girlfriend is still unconscious and the crocodile is still there but minding her own business, yes, it’s a she and getting a nest ready… crocodile eggs, baby! And talking about babies, Day finds a positive pregnancy test in one of Koi’s pockets and immediately gets this cool protector vibe and starts looking around and realizes he could open the drain cover located in the middle of the pool and try to go get help, so, impressively, he manages to open the huge drain cover and when he turns away to say goodbye to Koi, mama crocodile beats him to it and goes down the drain first, yikes! Cut to Day noticing that the unconscious Koi is now burning up so he decides to risk it all and go down the drain too, so he goes down but the crocodile is nowhere to be found and, luckily, Day finds an exit but, unluckily, it is locked. Long story short, the crocodile gets out of the drain and back into the empty pool where Koi is still unconscious and alone, and for a few seconds the crocodile gets too close for comfort but daddy Day attacks her from behind and scares her away. It was at this moment that Koi finally wakes up and realizes their horrible situation.
DAY THREE, today is a slow day; a weak, diabetic Day can only manage to write on the floor HELP! in huge letters with leftover black tape from the production. At night, it rains heavily and mama crocodile lays her eggs.
DAY FOUR, the crocodile is super chill and minding her own business by her nest. Cut to Day setting a trap for her and, long story short, they trick the crocodile and she falls down the drain and they keep her there while they steal and eat her eggs. Since Day and Koi are now well fed and stronger, they join forces and try to climb out of the pool but have no luck so they decide to save their energy and rest. Here’s when they start talking about life and when Koi learns that Day wanted her to get an abortion which both saddens her and pisses her off and demands that he not only stops talking crazy but that he does whatever he has to do to get them out of there.
DAY FIVE, it is decided that they need to trade places with the crocodile so they open the drain cover and big mama gets out immediately to find her nest destroyed so she is also pissed now but before she can do anything about it, both Day and Koi are gone down the drain, woo hoo! Well, not sure what their full plan was because they are still trapped and, at nighttime, Day is shaking badly due to his diabetes, however, because he is a badass he gathers the last ounce of energy he has in him and climbs toward the exit from earlier, you know, the one that was locked, and thru the vent—which very luckily was just adjacent to the pool—he notices that the table where Mayom placed the extra insulin syringe was right there, he could see it now, so he “MacGyver’s" it and tries to get it but since this is his worst week ever he ends up breaking the glass syringe. (I actually almost cried during this scene, almost.)
DAY SIX, Day and Koi are still inside the locked exit but they now, thanks to a miracle, find Day’s cigarette case which had been accidentally dropped into the vents by Mayom; the case not only had cigarets but also two insulin shots. (My goodness! How was he able to survive six days without insulin!?) Now, a healthier Day, decides to leave Koi behind in order to explore on his own the pool as there was a drone flying above them. So he is back in the pool with the crocodile but the drone was gone; undefeated, Day keeps looking around and realizes that the wind blew over some clothes and cables which he could use to climb out of, hurray! But, oh no, while climbing he hurts himself badly (the cable was actually barbed wire) and falls from several feet high up and breaks his leg. Long story short, he fights the crocodile and after managing not to get eaten he decides to go hide again down the pool drain but this time he goes the other way and finds another exit, but that exit was also a bad one because it ended on the opposite side of the adjoining pool. Poor Day screams and shouts in frustration and decides to retreat and go down the drain again, but once in there, he unfortunately collapses and passes out, alone.
DAY SEVEN, while Day is still unconscious, the people who were flying the drone the prior day return to the pool to retrieve the thing, you see, today the wind was too strong to fly and it made the drone crash inside the now very dirty, very abandoned-looking pool where the crocodile was sleeping under piles of furniture and trash, unnoticed. Long story short, the two drone fellas grab a wooden ladder that was somewhere around the pool and with no problem at all get down the ladder, fetch the drone, get up the ladder and leave in two minutes. Luckily for Day, they leave the ladder hanging so the only thing he has to do is wake up, get out of the drain, not bother the crocodile, and go on his merry way, except that mama crocodile is still pissed and attacks him and they start fighting again. Cut to the damn wind getting stronger when all of the sudden the cylinders holding the wooden ladder start rolling away, pulling with them the ladder and oh my goodness there is absolutely nothing Day can do to stop it.
This is when everything takes a turn for the worse.
When a broken Day—crocodile bites all over him, a busted leg, other various injuries, hunger, dehydration, lack of insulin, lack of hope (damn wind)—finally decides to surrender and die in peace, he pretty much just lays there, not reacting to the crocodile’s deadly bite when all of the sudden he hears a whistle, signaling him that Koi was still alive (for a moment there he thought she had perished, and, apparently, he’d also decided he did want her and the baby in his life) so he gives us a moment of pure badassery when he changes his mind about dying and chooses to survive and he single-handlely kills the predator once and for all. Cut to the dog, Lucky, reacting to the previously said whistle and jumping towards the pool just like he was instructed to do as an Extra during the commercial shoot and, tragically, ends up hanging himself by the neck in a very graphic way. (Moment of silence for Lucky #gnarly #americawouldnever) Long story short, Day and his survival instincts now in full gear tell him to go towards Lucky, his beloved companion, and make his way up, to quite literally use his body as a tool to free himself. And so he does. And then he tries to save his girl but he encounters other hurdles as well and, you know what, I am honestly way, way too exhausted (this movie was a lot) to continue listing all the bad things that happened next so let's just yada, yada thru them real quick and close this by saying he does free her and revives her. The end.
The Pool was a gratifying adventure between a man and his own precarious circumstances; not only were there internal factors (chronic illness, fear of an unstable future, of a committed relationship, of fatherhood), but also external (an abandoned, inescapable 6-meter diving pool, and a large crocodile), nevertheless, it was the man alone who succeeded at every challenge thrown his way, coping with it all. Neither ‘prison’ nor ‘beast’ proved itself stronger than him.
Watch The Pool, please.
In Love and Fear,
—Marath
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