The Pool (2018) Reviews

• Best Film Of The Year ( Score 9.6/10 ⭐ )

  ymyuseda2018-11-28

  Best Film Of The Year ! Best Film In Malaysian Cinema Right Now ! Character 'Day' In This Movie Is Very Effective . Best Director By Ping Lumpraploeng ! Best Acting By Theeradej Wongpuapan !!

• Thailand Version of Crocodile is more sophisticated and astonishing

  hilaryswank20112019-01-14

  Western Franchise Film Series with Crocodile We know there are many crocodile B panic horror movies made by the Hollywood in the past decades, especially from 1980s to 2000s as alternative of JAWS franchise. Of course, they formed both Alligator franchise (Dir. Lewis Teague; 1980-1991), Lake Placid franchise (Dir. Steve Miner; 1999- 2018) and Crocodile franchise (Dir.Tobe Hooper; 2000-2002). The feature is that all of them are enormous huge gigantic and mutilated crocodile or alligator fictionally. Even Anaconda films follow this tradition. This fictional exaggeration is slightly harmful to the fictional reality feeling for audience. Before The Pool (2018), I think Alligator (1980) and Robert Flaherty's Louisiana Story (1948) are better crocodile-related films that successfully brought the horror of creeping eaten machine in river and ground sewer in Chicago. Bazin overly praised the single shot in which a crocodile is creeping toward a bird, in fact, it's just a part of cross cutting in general. Construction within single shot and construction among shots should be fairly and equally respected in terms of the entire art expression and its construction efforts. The Pool (Dir. Ping Lumpraploeng; 2018) is a well made Thailand genre film that dealt with both aesthetically important aspects. Trapped in the 6 Meter-Deserted Pool with Crocodile The protagonist Day (Theeradej Wongpuapan)'s survival straggle with his girl friend Koi (Ratnamon Ratchiratham) is sadly painful due to Final Destination like serial accidents that isolate them from the rest of the world for 6 days with a mysterious ordinary size crocodile suddenly appears after the 6 meter-deserted pool water is cleared. Day is left for clearing up the pool after the shooting of a commercial film taken place by their company as a production staff. The main plot concern is why the crocodile comes to the pool. On the contrary to other crocodile films and advertisements of this film, the film did not show crocodile farm sequence. It maybe cut off for making a surprise. And in reality, abandoned crocodiles appeared in Disney land to attack guests in US in the past. It's unimaginable for the victims. Moreover, a news said that old lady abandoned in deep pool due to broken ladder. Thus, this horror film plot is quite justifiable. The Scale is extremely limited in the 6 meter Pool but it's more intense than Western Crocodile blockbusters The most commemorative achievement of The Pool (2018) is its limited scale, dramatic intension within the 6 meter pool and its under ground sewer. It proved that high limitation in drama stage is not inferior, if its drama is more intense and full of emotional impacts, it gave us sense of non B low budget movie. It still can make us feel as if it's a blockbuster film. Limitation of scale and drama is positive method to deepen its drama and its development possibilities. In film, the most impressive and insightful moment is that Day's pet Lucky jumps out from above to be an escape rope or ladder for its master Day.Poor Lucky is tied to pool side firmly and fortunately escapes misfortune that eaten alive by the creeping crocodile. The filmmakers let audience think at the first place that the Lucky is stupid to disobey Day's warning and just unintentionally jumps out of pool side however it's not. Lucky is genius and intentionally sacrificed itself to save its master. Day is not alone with his pet Lucky and his girl friend Koi. Actually Day can escape earlier if he abandons accidentally injured Koi by ordering her to be his ladder to escape. He actually doesn't. This reaction to the adversary is highly complemental and meaningful to know who he is. Identification issue in cinematic art is not ''where are you from?'', but it is who you are. Human? or Crocodile? Day proves himself as a human not a crocodile in this quality genre film from Thailand. 5 Star genre film! Recommended for experience of rising South East Asian genre film quality.

• Don't let an uninviting plot mislead you. Go watch tense scenes, unexpected developments and surprising twists. It's a showcase for the saying: Limitation Reveals The Master

  JvH482019-05-03

  Saw this at the Brussels International Fantastic Film Festival 2019 (BIFFF for intimates). Remarkable how the film makers succeeded in filling one and a half hour running time with just a seemingly simplistic situational plot. Impossible at first sight, but they did it. It was not super-tense all the time, but there were ample unexpected developments to keep us alive. A bit of humour was included, also a bit of romance mixed with marital problems (even a row about an abortion in such dire circumstances). There is no limit to the number of mishaps and stupidities included in this movie, but without these we would have had no story and thus no movie with several tense scenes, unexpected twists and surprising developments. I'm at a loss why the crocodile was not threatening all the time. It may be the nature of the beast, e.g. sleeping when its stomach is filled. A very unexpected development was that the crocodile even laid some eggs (it was a female one, the twosome deduced), coming in very handy when being stuck in the pool for three days already. Yet a dangerous thing to do, as the crocodile was not very happy when she could not find her eggs back, hence not prepared to be lenient. The script also succeeded in giving an important role to dog Lucky a few times. Its action were not always in their advantage, but he still was very present some of the time, despite being outside the pool and with an unbridgeable distance between the dog and the twosome in the deep. Shouting to a dog and telling him what to do, does not always have the desired effect. If on a quest to find an illustration of the saying that Limitation Reveals The Master, don't look any further. This movie has it all: less than a handful of protagonists, a confined stage for the players, only a few props, all of this assembled in a very simplistic decor. The crocodile may very well be the costliest item on the set, as it looked very convincing and alive, apparently not a DIY product. All in all, though obviously an example of one-off entertainment, this movie is well made and included a lot of original ideas. Its synopsis may look uninviting upfront, but don't that let mislead you when deciding to book tickets for it. See for yourself who (if any) will survive.

• Murphy's Law; - level 1.000

  Coventry2019-04-15

  We all know the so-called "Murphy's Law", stating that if something CAN go wrong, it WILL go wrong. We also all know this is one of the rare theories in life that is actually truthful, but the good Thai people with unpronounceable names who made "The Pool" perhaps pushed the theory of "Murphy's Law" a bit too far over the edge. The series of misfortunes, unlucky coincidences, malaises and stupidities that overcome lead characters Day and Koi in this film are too numerous and exaggerated to believe, but admittedly they also do ensure a very intense, fast-paced and action-packed thriller. Because of a bit of bad luck and a lot of dumbness, set decorator Day gets trapped inside of a massive but isolated 6-meter deep exterior pool while the water is slowly clearing away. Due to even more dumbness, his fiancée Koi gets trapped in there too, with a serious head injury to boot! If you can accept that people built 6-meter-deep pools without bothering to install ladders, I'm sure you can also suspend your disbelief for the non-stop series of unfortunate events that follow. The fun is complete when a savage crocodile, at large due to the heavy rainfall and floods of recent weeks, accidentally falls into the pool as well. Yes, "The Pool" often is laughably far-fetched, but it's also very suspenseful, compelling and exciting. The crocodile is a fabulous work of craftmanship; - realistic and genuinely menacing. For an action/thriller with such a rudimentary premise, limited cast and minimal set-pieces, it's entertaining & recommendable.

• Directing and script writing not survive!

  somcat2019-05-15

  Director and Script writer like haven't seen survival movie before. Many situations not making any sense.Storytelling like jump cut . Directing is bad. Scripts is worse .