Deep Down

Selena is a therapist who seems to have everything she could want: a loving and devoted fiancé named Jesse, plenty of friends aching to see her more often, and her own practice with no shortage of patients. But Selena seems jaded and generally disinterested in all of it, ultimately pushing everyone away, forgetting her own birthday, and leaving her engagement ring behind at the office, to Jesse’s dismay. Selena’s solution is to spend time alone, setting out on a day-long drive to the lakeside town where she would spend summers growing up. But a few cold welcomes from the locals are emphasized by Marcus, a former flame and neighbor, when Selena makes an assumption about his deaf daughter, Emma. That night, Marcus extends an olive branch and the two reminisce, with Selena remembering that she may have caused the death of one of their friends by daring him to venture out into the deep water that they’ve been forbidden from swimming in their whole lives. Marcus gives her a moment alone and a mysterious force, accompanied by an unsettling THUMPING sound, ushers Selena out into the lake and toward the ominous deep water. She’s suddenly pulled under by an invisible Entity and, unable to break away, accepts the coming death. But the Entity releases her without warning, expelling her from the deep water. Marcus pulls Selena to the safety of the shoreline where she remembers that she’s survived this monster in the lake once before, twenty-one years ago. Selena’s interactions in town the following day are even more confrontational, with locals who know she’s survived the deep in the past not-so-subtly blaming her for everyone who has gone missing. But Emma offers to help, revealing that she has also survived the deep twice, as a child, though she doesn’t advertise that fact. Emma does note that Marcus should have been watching her more closely that first time and she hasn’t fully forgiven him for her resulting hearing loss. She lets Selena in on her theory that there is a pattern to why they’re drawn into the deep, and unfortunately hers is much more frequent than Selena’s. The main reason Emma is back in town is to confront the Entity in the deep for the third time in her life. Selena is relieved to have someone she can lean on, but it’s short-lived when the mysterious force takes control once more, leading to the death of a seemingly-evil shopkeeper as well as a tense showdown with two Police Officers. Upon escaping, Selena is invited to a party with some of Emma’s friends where she reveals that, like Emma at a younger age, she attempted to commit suicide via the Entity in the deep. But the party ends with Selena saving Emma and her boyfriend from being sucked out into the deep during a storm. Still searching for answers, Selena confronts the Entity at the edge of the deep. But for some reason, it still refuses to kill her. The next day, Selena swims out to the deep and offers herself to the Entity, but it still refuses to take her. But after Selena gives up and heads inside, the Entity slips into the shallows and pulls Marcus away. Selena and Emma both dive in to try to save him, but their efforts are ultimately futile as Marcus apologizes to his daughter one final time through sign language before being sucked under. Emma tries over and over to swim down for him, but she’s expelled each time by the Entity. Selena attempts to comfort the young woman, but Emma lashes out, delivering cutting remarks that seemingly sever their friendship and send Selena back to the city. She returns to her previous life, putting up with her fiancé and her patients, until one of the Officers from the lake town visits and confesses that they were related to the friend Selena dared to swim out into the deep all those years ago. But the Officer harbors no ill will and only wishes they had reached out to someone earlier in life so they wouldn’t have ended up as such a negative person. Selena takes this to heart and makes a small gesture to her receptionist, noticing how something so simple can be so helpful. Jumping ahead seven years, Emma is now married to her former boyfriend and they have a young daughter. They arrive at Marcus’s old cottage and Emma readies to face the Entity in the deep for the fourth time, but she’s surprised to find Selena there. Emma complains that even though she had cut off all contact with Selena through the years since her father died, Selena constantly inserted herself into her life anyway. It’s here that Selena reveals her promise to Marcus that she would look out for Emma in the way he could not. And she lets Emma know that her friends and family are there for her as she makes her trip into the deep once again, but they’re happy to spend some final time together if she can wait. Emma looks back to her family, then out to the deep, and we cut to black, unsure if she’s ready to head out just yet.