Pool Horror

The Pool

Swimming Pool

Come on in, my dear readers, the water’s just fine! Especially after last week’s hellishly hot desert horror films, I felt that we deserved a double dose of pool horror to cool us down—plus, thanks to global warming, pool season now lasts way longer than it used to… Despite being a water sign, I’ve never been a strong swimmer, or even someone who gravitates toward the water very often. But one of the greatest privileges of my youth was my backyard swimming pool—a small, cooling oasis that occupied many hot summer days as a child, and a few late nights as a teen. It’s where I learned how to swim, how to hold my breath, how to float, how to play mermaids, and how to curate the perfectly vibey pool playlist that only adds to the experience of cool, calming, weightlessness. But apart from my lovely, private, perfectly-shaded pool, I was intimidated to swim, especially when every other swimming hole seemed endlessly deep and full of rowdy strangers. This fear of other pools might’ve also come from watching movies where large, formidable pools plagued the screen, threatening to envelop whatever soul stepped too close to its edge. Though it may be a niche classification, swimming pools have been a staple of horror stories ever since the first suburban dad dug a shovel into his backyard. My mind swims back to The Twilight Zone episode titled “The Bewitchin’ Pool”, wherein two children find a magical escape from their cold, disinterested parents when they dive into the deep end of their pool and discover a portal to another time and place. To quote Rod Serling, “A swimming pool not unlike any other pool, a structure built of tile and cement and money, a backyard toy for the affluent, wet entertainment for the well-to-do. But to Jeb and Sport Sharewood, this pool holds mysteries not dreamed of by the building contractor, not guaranteed in any sales brochure. For this pool has a secret exit that leads to a never-neverland, a place designed for junior citizens who need a long voyage away from reality, into the bottomless regions of the Twilight Zone.” It’s not even a scary episode, but it is incredibly transportive, and to the child version of myself who first witnessed it, it further opened up my imagination. Pools can be background characters in horror films, as in the opening sequence of Scream, but pools have also had starring roles in a myriad of jumpy movies. There are significant and intimidating pool set pieces in Poltergeist, Jennifer’s Body, Nightmare on Elm Street 2, Sunset Boulevard, Diabolique, The Faculty, Deep Blue Sea, Swimfan, Let the Right One In, Deep End, The Stepfather (2009), Valentine (technically hot tub horror), It Follows, The Plague, and, of course, the not-so-scary but still haunting and surreal film The Swimmer. And that’s not even mentioning Night Swim, a very recent film about a possessed pool! (I think. I haven’t seen it yet.) In Cullen Wade’s article “Chlorinated Slaughter: Predation and Power in Ten Horror Movie Swimming Pools”, he explains, “Unlike wild-water swimming, the artificial pool is supposed to be safe, a water experience mediated by concrete and chemicals. But even the tamest water is inhospitable to surface-dwellers, and the horror movie swimming pool often functions as what theorist Barbara Creed calls a ‘border.’…But borders—like the dollar store swim goggles that barely keep the pool water out of my eyes—are leaky. At the swimming pool, the natural leaks into the unnatural, public intrudes on private, and the chaste morphs into the erotic.” And to that I say, you know what? Yeah! Swimming pools are a hub for horror, and this double feature may not be as niche as I feared! So let’s dive into two pool-centric horror films, and explore what terrors await us in the darkness of the deep end.

Let’s begin with a film that has a premise so specific, you can picture it all in your head before you even press play, this is Ping Lumpraploeng’s 2018 film The Pool. The Pool opens in a far more thrilling fashion than its title would suggest, as we are placed in the POV of a man, who struggles to open his eyes as he comes to in a dirty, unknown setting. White walls and scattered blood surround him, the sun is blinding above him, the wounds on his hands are slowly unblurring, and at his feet is a giant crocodile full of teeth and unfettered rage. The man is able to fight off the croc momentarily, and as he catches his breath, the camera pans away. Text comes on the screen that reads, “Six days earlier”, and we are taken back a short distance in time, to learn how the hell this dude ended up in this situation. We’re then properly introduced to this unlucky man, named Day, as we witness him working in the background on a complicated, expensive-looking photoshoot taking place at a gigantic pool. Day works in the art department for this production company, and has the tricky task of adjusting lights and props underwater as the director yells at him, and as the model attempts to hold her breath and her pose. To say this pool is massive would be an understatement. It’s six meters (around 20 feet) deep and surrounded by rows and rows of stadium-style seats, with a gargantuan, Olympic-level diving board towering above it. We get the impression that Day is a hard worker, but doesn’t make a lot of money, something that bothers but doesn’t deter his loving girlfriend, Koi, who shows up to set with their dog, Lucky, for moral support. Koi jokes with Day that she’d love to take a dip, but the next day this giant pool will be drained and abandoned for good. The following morning, Day has been tasked with cleaning up the pool, and clearing it of all of the trash and props that are left behind. But first, Day grabs a float and glides atop the shining waters of this deep pool, enjoying a moment of relaxation after a long night’s work. Day’s friend (or maybe boss? it was kinda hard to tell) arrives at the pool and presses the button to slowly drain it. He warns Day that soon enough this pool will be completely empty, so he should get out soon, but Day falls asleep. Much later, he is awoken by the sound of Lucky barking—an attempt to let his owner know just how badly he just fucked up. When his eyes open, the water is already several feet below the edge of the pool, and much to Day’s horror, the top is just out of his reach. With no ladder in sight, Day tries and fails several times to balance on his slippery pool float in order to escape, but nothing works. Semi-resigned to his fate and exhausted, he falls back asleep on his float. Not long after, Koi shows up with her beach towel ready, smiling at Lucky who is chained up just outside the pool. She climbs to the top of the diving tower, stretches her body tall, and just as she’s getting ready to jump, Day wakes up and yells at her to stop. But it’s too late, and on the way down, Koi slams her head against the diving board, her bloody body landing in the pool like a cannonball gone wrong. Koi is bleeding from her head but is somehow still alive, and now the couple are both trapped in this steadily sinking, arena-sized pool. Day carefully places Koi on the float, Lucky continues to bark at something just above the pool, and just when Day feels truly hopeless, fate sends a long, enormous crocodile right into the pool. As if the lack of water, food, and escape weren’t life-threatening enough, Day is now just feet away from one of the greatest threats this critic can imagine, and this beast is just as pissed to be trapped as Day is. Over the course of six, ridiculously stressful days, Day and Koi battle to protect themselves from this crocodile, knowing that their chances of being rescued from this abandoned pool are slim. It is a nail-biting, heart-pounding, exhilarating time that made me wince, cheer, and yell at the screen. The stunts and schemes and MacGyver-level survival techniques displayed in this film were impressive, as were the performances, even when it was edited like a Thai soap opera. I was completely locked into this thrill ride, until—S P O I L E R A L E R T—the dog dies, and I was taken out of it completely. I don’t care if I sound like a baby, or a novice-level-horror-watcher, but 99% of dog deaths in movies are just unnecessary and overly painful. They’re typically utilized to make us really hate the antagonist, to remove any shred of humanity the villain may have held, but the big-bad of The Pool is literally another animal, just doing what it must to survive. The dog was never even in danger, because it is above the pool the entire film, while the humans are the ones under attack. That’s why it was so shocking, so undeserved, and clearly only deployed to evoke some sense of shock in a movie that spent all of its shock-value already. When this moment happened, the overwrought absurdity of this movie just started to wear on me, and I couldn’t wait for it to end. I hate feeling betrayed by a movie, and when the bar was already pretty low, it’s extra disappointing. I was looking forward to adding another country’s stamp to my international horror movie passport, but this excursion to Thailand just wound up being a big, stupid, bummer. Horror is all fun and games to this critic, so when you ruin the fun, you ruin the horror-atmosphere, and the magic, completely.

Thankfully, the next pool horror I watched was much, much, much more fun. We’re in international waters once again, but this time, no animals had to die, this is Boris von Sychowski’s 2001 movie Swimming Pool. Swimming Pool - Der Tod feiert mit (Death celebrates with us) in Germany, or The Pool - Basen in the US and UK, is an English-language German slasher film that introduces us to a group of young, wealthy students who attend an international high school in Prague. The film opens on a dark and stormy night, at an outrageously large estate. A young redheaded girl is preparing for a romantic dinner date as she chats with her mom on the phone, but the connection is bad, and the call drops. Soon after, the power goes out too, and the girl we barely got to know is hunted down and killed by a masked man wielding a machete. The next day, the graduating class of an elite international school are drowning in exams. We witness several cocky and intelligent youths, expertly writing impossible math equations on a chalkboard, explaining Picasso’s blue period, defending various theses to a challenging audience of unseen yet daunting teachers. Now that finals are done and their school days are freshly in their rearview mirrors, a group of friends plot and plan what they hope will be the best party ever. Sure, there’s the big senior party that everyone attends, but this intimate group concocts an after party that will be legendary, as they sneak into a luxe, indoor water park late at night. The friend group consists of an American named Sarah (Kristen Miller), a Scot named Mike (James McAvoy); a couple Brits named Frank (John Hopkins) and Melanie (Cordelia Bugeja); an Australian named Kim (Isla Fisher); an Argentinian named Diego (Maximilian Grill), and a couple of German “kids” named Gregor (Thorsten Grasshoff) and Carmen (Elena Uhlig.) There are a few more friends, but their nationalities (and names, for that matter) are not as heavily emphasized as the aforementioned crew. The technically-legal-drinking-aged youths descend upon this shockingly nice water park (a stark contrast to the ones I’m familiar with in America) and find a completely empty but clean water wonderland, complete with twisting slides, private grottos, and a full, untouched bar for some reason. Their night of debauchery is set to be epic, even though our blonde, American heroine Sarah refuses to swim due to a mysterious childhood trauma. This group is living it up, doing laps, chasing and flirting with each other, completely unaware that they’ve already lost a couple members of their (diverse, but still prettyyyyyy white) gang. It’s not until it’s too late that these teens realize that they’re being stalked and hunted, and by a member of their own friend group, no less. Swimming Pool (or, I guess, The Pool, as I’m meant to call it as an American audience member) was wet, wild, fun that gave me exactly what I wanted in a pool horror. There are very little actual scares to this movie, and yet there were a few deaths that really made my jaw drop. This slasher was released during an interesting period of time, with the success of the Scream franchise proving this genre’s worth, but few others were still unable to fully achieve the same pitch-perfect balance of horror, comedy, and meta-commentary. I don’t really fault any slasher of this era for this reason, because it is damn near impossible to incorporate the right amount of goofs with the right amount of gore. That being said, Swimming Pool was sufficiently fun and freaky enough for me, clunky dialogue and silly mask design aside. I never expected these pool horrors to be particularly horrific, but I did expect them to be entertaining and enjoyable, and at least one of them delivered on this. What I love about horror movies, even bad ones, is their ability to invent and introduce unique horror concepts that may have otherwise gone unexplored. And tonight’s pool horrors proved that the only thing worse than running for your life, is running for your life in a bikini 😨 Well that’s all the pool time I have this week, but I’m so glad you stopped by to take a dip with me. Until next time: no glass, no running, no crocodiles, and no masked “teen” killers allowed. Toodles!