Infinity Pool review: Blood, sex and a vicious bite of horror

Overflowing swimming pool is the best horror satire about Americans (and Brits and an Austrian) abroad since Hostel. The hype surrounding the film focuses on the depravity on display in Brandon Cronenberg’s sequel to Possessor (2020), which is right: the firecrackers are juicy, the nudity is frontal, and the psychedelic orgy sequence is extended. But there is an incisive point to all blood, sex and urine.

On the fictional island nation of La Tolqua, guests of the Pa Qlqa Pearl Princess resort are prohibited from venturing outside the barbed wire gates of the “resort”. And why would they? Pa Qlqa is a seaside paradise with its own Chinese restaurant and Bollywood dance performances. In the world of Overflowing swimming pool, it is a simulacrum of the world that allows tourists to feel like they are living an “international experience” without having to interact with someone who does not speak English. It is the ideal tourist economy, everywhere and nowhere at the same time.

Stripping a place of its identity inevitably leads to stripping its people of their humanity as well. It’s the call for a darker subset of Pa Qlqa regulars, who come to the island specifically to take advantage of a rule that allows foreigners to get away with one of the many punishable crimes. of the death penalty in La Tolqua. Blasphemy, drug possession, murder – all capital crimes, and all forgivable for the right price. (It’s such a common practice that there’s an ATM at police headquarters specifically for withdrawing payments.) This allows Americans like Gabi (Mia Goth), Alban (Jalil Lespert) and their friends to treat La Tolqua as a hedonistic playground where absolutely nothing is off limits.

Photo: Neon

Gabi and Alban exude swinger energy. (Indiscriminate hugs are what give it away.) And indeed, they drag unsuspecting married couple James (Alexander Skarsgård) and Em (Cleopatra Coleman) into their wanton lifestyle using a “we saw you” type tactic. across the bar,” only in this case is “I read your book.” James is an author, and not a very successful one; it’s been six years since his first (and last) novel came out, and he and Em, whose wealthy dad funds the couple’s lifestyle, came to La Tolqua looking for “inspiration.” They will get it, but not in the way they expected.

James and Em agree to accompany Gabi and Alban on a secret getaway away from the resort town and into the countryside of La Tolqua, an odd combination of tropical paradise and a decaying late Soviet-style industrial state. Suffice to say, the exit leads to James and Em being questioned by Detective Thresh (Thomas Kretschmann) in the crumbling concrete bunker that serves as La Tolqua’s police headquarters. There’s a sci-fi element to the country’s get-out-of-jail politics, which it’s best not to spoil here. For once more yadda-yadda past the details, the process blows James’ mind and shakes Em to his heart, creating a conflict that is exacerbated by Gabi’s aggressive sexual advances on James.

2022 has been a big year for Mia Goth, who seems to have found her calling as an actress thanks to her dual roles in Ti West’s X and pearl. She plays in an equally deranged register here – there’s no one in the game right now who can giggle maniacally while firing a gun quite like Mia Goth, and Cronenberg takes advantage of her gift to rant without retained throughout the film. Skarsgård, meanwhile, plays the role of Goth’s chaotic domme, pushing his character’s initial discomfort to a primal place beyond morality and impulse control. (Ironically, Gabi and his friends frequently refer to La Tolquans as “animals” while behaving animalistically themselves.) His head hangs limply on his neck, and his eyes glaze over as he spits cherries maraschino on disgusted guests and crawling on all fours wearing a dog collar.

Photo: Neon

Overflowing swimming pool turns into body horror as its decadence becomes more psychedelic, thanks to a drug called “ekki gate”, which Gabi reassures James is the only hallucinogen allowed at La Tolqua. (“It’s a religious thing,” she says.) The parallel between this plot point and Americans traveling to South America to sample ayahuasca is telling. The same goes for orgies: there’s a chain of hotels in Jamaica called Hedonism II that markets itself as a place couples can go to fulfill their wildest erotic fantasies – all from the safety of the resort, although safe. There’s also a common thread in the film about toxic masculinity and ‘domesticated’ Western men seeking ‘liberation’ through violence and subjugation – a theme that particularly resonates after the arrest of Andrew Tate in Romania. (one of those “fake” countries where American men can do whatever they want) accused of human trafficking.

Cronenberg’s scenario for Overflowing swimming pool is filled with dark, tongue-in-cheek jokes, many of which are funny and bursts of laughter. (At first, Gabi says she’s an actress who specializes in “natural failure” in commercials.) There are a lot of quirky touches in this film, and all of them serve a purpose; even the Leatherface-esque masks seen in the trailer serve a dual purpose, reinforcing feelings of depersonalization and evoking the commodification of Indigenous cultures. The only problem with the plot is that its climax is inevitable once everything is revealed. But, to be fair, the film is adorned with so many bright and violent ornaments that an overly complicated narrative structure would have made Overflowing swimming pool difficult to follow. As it stands, the point is clear: a benumbed cyclone of bottomless rights is the ugliest thing an American (or any other nationality) can be.

Overflowing swimming pool opens in theaters on January 27.