Astral projection is the act of separating ones consciousness from their physical body to travel through a non-physical realm. Some people willingly practice this, while others sometimes “pop” out, oftentimes while they’re sleeping. In this newest release from Terror Films, The Depths brings siblings in to this spectral realm only to turn their found footage voyage into a terrifying look at their pasts.
After a brother and sister achieve astral projection, the footage they capture reveals the malicious effects of their family trauma.
The Depths, IMDB
A brother and sister team up to prove a point — astral projection exists. Framed by way of recording a documentary project for school, they immediately hit trouble when first, the other students poo-poo the idea (which, to be fair, would be a hard concept to document in the first place), and second, the method of astral projecting awakens horrors previously unknown to our human realm. It seems that opening a portal to our dimension isn’t actually a good idea, and monsters manifesting from childhood traumas become all too real — real enough to cause death.
The Depths may dissuade some viewers from watching purely because it is found footage. I get it. But I think this movie deserves a chance based on the premise alone. The idea of astral projection — and filming it, at that — is crazy and something I’d definitely want to see. The Depths takes this almost whimsical, dreamy action and makes it terrifying by filming participants squirming on beds, distant noises made by inhuman mouths, and of course, capturing the abominations emanating from our subconscious all on tape. The Depths does carry the tropes and beats of any other found footage film, but it does at least make sense as to why the filming is taking place at all.
This movie does have some scares. The Depths features gore by way of bloodied entrails and handprints on walls. Seeing swaths of red lining bedsheets and bathrooms is not on my list for things I want to see in my camera viewfinder, making for an increasingly creepy experience. And then there are the monsters; astral projection, as it turns out, can be dangerous, and The Depths shows that beings made of pure violence and rage can definitely burst their way into our world in gruesome fashion. With deformed, gloopy faces and tortured movement, these beings hunt down others with no mercy.
If blood and gore aren’t your thing, The Depths transitions from one group of scenes to another with little bits of analog footage and voice overs about astral projection. In found footage movies, I can get a little bogged down by wait times and otherwise dull moments (of which The Depths unfortunately does have), but short analog horror videos, like the ones often found on YouTube, are what really gets my heart racing. Including these bits made The Depths stick out from the rest of the POV pile, giving us more than point-and-shoot scares.
While The Depths wasn’t all fun and games (the characters were extremely unlikeable and the story could use a bit more explaining pertaining to the siblings’ “trauma”), I think this was an overall right step to make for found footage films as a whole. It’s no longer enough to just have a camera and shake the camera about. Like The Depths, you need to add some pizzazz. Is The Depths perfect? No. But it does give glimpses into another dimension where found footage reigns supreme.
The Depths premieres across multiple platforms (including Tubi, Chilling, The Roku Channel, Fandango at Home, and more) today! Visit the film onย Instagram and followย Terror Filmsย for more.
