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There are a few different ideas coming together in this movie. The most engaging one is that of two people connecting over a large distance, able to see each other but too far away to speak. There is a version of this where the couple fall for each other while stuck in opposite street facing apartments, both phone-less so it’s pre 2000, they’re young, maybe he’s recovering from an injury and she’s been grounded by her parents for some minor misdemeanour – like a love story version on Rear Window. This isn’t the set up here but it is still sweet watching the two of them writing messages to one another, playing chess on makeshift boards, and dancing.

What is actually happening is that they are trained snipers on highly armed watchtowers on either side of a ravine in which lives hellishly distorted humanoid creatures intent on getting out and destroying the world. As I say, different ideas. 

The first part of the film, before one of them inevitably falls in, is definitely the more engaging but actually it all holds together quite well. I don’t know what they came up with first; the romance or the monsters, but the reveal of what is inside the titular rocky valley is suitably imaginative too. The characterisation is interesting (even hardened killers need love), the design good (the bottom of the gorge is reminiscent of the fire swamp between Florin and Gilder – mutants of unusual rage, I don’t think they exist). The question of whether it is fate or circumstance that has brought them together is sidestepped (2016’s Passengers examined the notion of whether it is true love when you have no other options better) and none of it is groundbreaking, but it is all quite fun. 

As well as referencing female lead Anya Taylor Joy’s show The Queen’s Gambit with the chess they also have her and Miles Teller doing some Whiplash style drumming. Director Scott Derrickson is doing this between Black Phone and its sequel and this won’t go down as one of his greatest hits either but even if it’s true that everyone involved has done better work, there are worse ways of spending an evening. 

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The Gorge is streaming on Apple TV+