Infinity Pool

Given where the world is at these days, it's probably not a surprise that there's been a lot of "eat the rich" movies put out in the last few years. And Brandon Cronenberg's third feature, Infinity Pool, is certainly another one. It's easy to reduce these movies thematically to nothing more than rich = bad, but even if that's the case here, you can't say that Cronenberg doesn't at least give you your money's worth of gonzo horror, sex and violence.

The movie's basic plot is surprisingly similar to I Know What You Did Last Summer. Alexander Skarsgård (not nearly as huge as he seemed in The Northman) plays James Foster, a struggling author, on vacation at a luxury resort with his rich wife Em, played by Cleopatra Coleman. They meet another couple (which includes the ultra-so-hot-right-now Mia Goth) and decide to go on a road trip picnic outside of the resort, after which James accidentally hits a local pedestrian with his car. They flee the scene because they are in the fictional country of Lakota, which we are told is very crime-ridden and violent with a very corrupt and dangerous police force.

I don't want to say too much more than that, because from here things start to spiral into the very weird. Lakota turns out to have a pretty unusual and sci-fi method of dealing with crime, and the repercussions of this method make up the rest of the movie. Suffice it to say that James ends up running around with Mia Goth and her crew of unhinged ultra-rich hedonists, which starts an increasingly surreal parade of the advertised drugs, violence and orgies.

Cronenberg uses off-kilter camera angles and a creepy score to enhance the movie's disorienting effect; you're often struck by a beautiful shot and then disgusted at some gnarly body horror seconds later. The numerous (and quite long) trippy drug scenes are appropriately well done and weird, if not a little cliche.

Thematically is where the movie stumbles a little. Sure, rich = bad, and there are scenes throughout that do little more than remind us how bad they are (particularly a running gag where the resort provides "ethnic" entertainment options to amuse the guests, which are really just over the top stereotypes). James is caught between two worlds: thinking himself better than the common poors but not quite accepted by the elites. If we're supposed to feel for his struggle, I'm not sure that quite works, as he seems more than willing to try and keep up with the sadism of the rich crowd until he realizes that crowd never accepted him to begin with.

Thankfully the weirdness keeps you watching, aided by the spectacularly wild performance of Mia Goth, who is starting to become the first person you call when you need to cast someone sexy but insanely terrifying in a horror movie. It's a wild, strange ride for sure, but ultimately it just dresses up one that we've been on many times before.