So, whilst Nope was very recent, Infinity Pool (2023) brings us bang up-to-date. Directed by Brandon Cronenberg, son of gore-horror legend David Cronenberg, and starring Alexander Skarsgard, who we all know is good.

Consider this a souvenir.

As usual I’m not going to say too much about the plot, as there’re too many spoliers down that route. Essentially a man and his wife (but mostly the man) make the mistake of talking to a strange couple at an all-inclusive holiday resort which occupies a compound within an otherwise poor, under-developed and culturally strange country. Horror, body-dismorphic, psychotropic and strange sexual situations subsequently occur.

What are the best bits (intentionally-vague slight-spoilers)? What physically happens to James is an interesting and fun premise with loads of possibilities. There’s some social commentary about wealth and the corrupting potential of comfort, although it’s a bit blunt. Some of the scenes are visually well-constructed. Mia Goth’s character is unsettlingly weird for a while, although all the characters soon become quite cartoonish. All the cars and buses are good…

What are the worst bits? Overall, it’s pretty terrible. The psychological aspect of the whole premise, which could be terrifying, is painfully underdeveloped other than minor nods towards the obvious. The potential red-herring link between the local seasonal festival and events is underdeveloped. No character is likeable or interesting enough for the audience to care about them. All the regular aspects of ‘horror’ films (gratuitous nudity, gratuitous gore, ‘normal’ people suddenly deciding to commit criminal acts for unexplored reasons, uncertain reality) are in there, but don’t really mean anything. It all feels like a series of disparate parts with no convincing narrative thread to link them together. I think I might hate it.

Does it make you less likely to go on an all-inclusive holiday to a purpose-built resort? No. Mainly because, as a person who has never been to a high-cost resort shuttered off from a the otherwise-impoverished country it occupies, I have always assumed that this is exactly what to expect. Perhaps not so much the interactions with the local populace, but the feeling of being stuck in a small place with a bunch of weird people who are so bored with life that they would actively choose to be in a hotel complex surrounded by the same people eating inauthentic food, drinking and making friendships of convenience/wife-swapping to pass the time.