Movie Review: DEEP MURDER (2019) - Nightmarish Conjurings

There are plenty of horror comedies that prominently feature sex, but DEEP MURDER is a horror sex comedy. It’s a slasher movie that takes place within a porn movie, which is a premise I can’t remember ever seeing before. This kind of makes sense when you find out DEEP MURDER was directed by Nick Corirossi, who is known for being a former staff writer/director at Funny or Die.

The opening credits of DEEP MURDER are reminiscent of those terrible soft porn movies that used to be shown on cable TV late at night. Anyone who was a teenager in the nineties knows what I’m talking about. In fact, there are many references to the nineties in this movie. The dialogue is ridiculous, and the plot is insane, but none of that matters, because this is porn. Babs (Katie Aselton) is having an affair with her brother-in-law Doug (Jerry O’Connell) and is enjoying a candle-lit rendezvous with him while her husband Dick Dangler (Christopher McDonald) is in another room on a business call. Babs’ son, Hugh (Quinn Beswick), is downstairs hanging out with his best friend Jace (Chris Redd), who decides it’s time for Hugh to lose his virginity. Right on cue, the babysitter (Jessica Parker Kennedy) walks in dressed in short shorts and sucking on a lollipop. Before anyone has time to get naked, Dr. Bunny Van Clit (Stephanie Drake) appears at the front door and announces she is a weather scientist who has come to warn them about a catastrophic storm that is on the way. There are several outside shots of the sunny weather, so this becomes one of many ongoing jokes in DEEP MURDER.

Loud screams are heard coming from upstairs and Doug is discovered on the waterbed stabbed to death. After they call the police, Detective Cross (Josh Margolin) arrives and immediately everyone is considered a suspect. As he questions each person separately, the others who are waiting to be questioned become increasingly nervous. These one-dimensional characters aren’t prepared to deal with a murder. The most interesting, and hilarious, scenes in the movie are the times like this when the characters begin to become self-aware. Because a lot of the humor seems to be aimed at adolescent boys, I think I would have enjoyed this movie more if the filmmakers had spent more time concentrating on the characters’ new-found self-awareness. I thought it was particularly funny when, at one point, the babysitter questions her existence and wonders aloud who she is babysitting, since there are no children in the house.

While almost everyone is trying to help figure out who the murderer is, Babs seems to be experiencing an existential crisis and reflects on whether she has been a good mother. She goes in the kitchen to prepare dinner for Hugh and when the smoke detector starts going off, the others find her dead with her head in the oven. The murderer killed her in quite a horrific way. All I will say is that I’m pretty sure I’ve seen death by dildo in a horror movie, but not like this. They put Babs’ body on the waterbed with Doug. Dr. Bunny has been collecting clues and is trying to solve the murders using science. Everyone splits up and begins searching the massive house. Hugh goes down to the basement and discovers a dark room filled with sex toys and weapons and someone who must be the killer, wearing a black latex bodysuit and a mask. The killer chases Hugh all over the house until Jace finally hits the killer and knocks them out, but not before they were able to stab Hugh in the leg. The killer leads Jace and Hugh into the bathroom where steam from the shower makes it difficult to see, and soon there is another dead body.

Detective Cross is a terrible detective, and with bodies literally piling up on the waterbed, Dr. Bunny tells him how bad he is at his job and that she is going to figure out who the killer is. They decide to set a trap for the killer, using Dick as bait. Meanwhile, Dr. Bunny finds the babysitter in the library and they have a tongue-in-cheek conversation about things she has learned about, including the Bechdel test, from reading books while everyone else was hunting for the killer. Keeping with the farcical tone of the movie, Dr. Bunny reads a forensic book, performs some experiments, and accidentally solves the case. Unfortunately, while she’s sharing what she found out with Detective Cross, the killer murders Dick.

The survivors manage to corner the killer and an absurd fight ensues culminating in the death of the killer, but not without one more casualty. There’s nothing deep or philosophical here, but DEEP MURDER does have a unique and imaginative plot, and despite the ludicrous dialogue and juvenile humor, it’s an entertaining watch. And just like porn, DEEP MURDER has a happy ending.

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Michelle Swope

Michelle is a Contributing writer for Nightmarish Conjurings, Dread Central, and Horrornews.net. She is also a Tomatometer-approved critic who loves all things horror and pastel hair color.

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