Review by
Eric Hillis
Directed by: John Adams, Toby Poser
Starring: John Adams, Toby Poser, Zelda Adams, Shawn Wilson, Joan Poser
Back in the days before Jaws and
Star Wars changed how Hollywood studios distributed their
wares, there was a lot more screen space to be filled in American movie
theatres. The '70s saw a boom in "regional" horror movies - low budget
(often micro budget) movies made by independent filmmakers who self
distributed their films to local cinemas within their own state.
The Deeper You Dig is made by upstate New York residents the
Adams family (how's that for nominative determinism?) - dad
John Adams, mom Toby Poser and their teenage daughter
Zelda Adams - with the same sort of entrepreneurial spirit as their
'70s predecessors, though with an extra degree of creative talent. With so
many screens to be filled, albeit within our homes, might we be seeing the
emergence of a new wave of regional horror?
If you're working with a limited budget, it's always best to keep your
premise simple, and that's what we get here. Ivy (Poser) is a psychic medium
whose powers dwindled long ago, but she still makes a living convincing the
local old dears that she can put them in touch with their dead relatives.
One evening she leaves her home to visit one such client, leaving her
teenage daughter Echo (Zelda Adams) to go sledding alone (the character name
'Echo' leads to a macabre gag later on when her name is shouted into the
void with no reply). Echo sleds right out onto the road and into the path of
an oncoming car driven by drunk driver Kurt (John Adams), the quiet stranger
who has purchased the rotting property next to Ivy and Echo's home.
Kurt takes Echo's corpse back to his house and sets about disposing of the
evidence while Ivy prints up flyers and appeals to the townsfolks for help
locating her child. As Kurt finds himself haunted by the spirit of his
accidental victim, Ivy revisits an old psychic acquaintance, Dell (Shawn Wilson, an unfortunate retreading of the tired old "magical negro" trope), who
puts her back into the spirit world as she seeks to communicate with
Echo.
As a product of DIY filmmaking on a low budget,
The Deeper You Dig is exemplary. Consumer grade Canon cameras
are employed to capture the action, with all three filmmakers chipping in as
camera operators. Adams and Poser find clever ways to exploit the
limitations of such cameras, particularly in how poorly they handle light.
Taking a cue from the Coen brothers' debut Blood Simple, a night time cadaver disposal attempt is lit using car headlights, the
shadows cast adding an eeriness to the proceedings. Under-exposed interiors
are employed to create screens within screens like comic book panels as we
watch the action through windows. Creative editing tricks are employed to
add to the film's theme of its characters losing sense of time (a cut
involving Poser emerging from water might be the most striking piece of
editing you'll see this year). The snowy New York state setting adds an
extra layer of production value.
Largely avoiding visual effects (the couple of CG moments present do
unfortunately stick out here), Adams and Poser instead focus on establishing
mood and slow-burning dread. The husband and wife are as impressive in front
as behind the camera - though the supporting cast isn't quite working on
their level - and their quietly impressive performances go a long way to
helping distract from the budgetary limitations.
The Deeper You Dig is let down in a final stretch where after
such patient and effective build-up, it ramps things up into Sam Raimi
channelling the Three Stooges territory as our grieving mother faces down
her child's killer in a standoff that makes us giggle a little more than we
really should. Had Adams and Poser found a way to resolve the film while
maintaining the sombre tone they had struck so well for most of its running
time, The Deeper You Dig would be a deeply satisfying and
inspiring piece of economical genre filmmaking. But there's plenty here to
demonstrate that the Adams family is a filmmaking collective to keep an eye
on.
