The premise is simple: a man gets stuck in a drained pool with a murderous crocodile. Pouring from the demented mind of Ping Lumprapleong, The Pool is a survival thriller that manages to balance dumb decisions with gut-busting laughs to mold an extreme riot of a film that shouldn’t be as entertaining as it is.
After a bizarre underwater female clown shoot in a pool, Day (Theeradej Wongpuapan) takes it upon himself to chill in the pool until it’s been drained of all its water. Regrettably for him, he’s an arrogant jerk who doesn’t listen to his friend when he tells him to get out and winds up stuck, unavailable to reach the edge after the pool has drained halfway.
It’s a series of unfortunate events that leaves him stuck in this six-meter-deep hole with his girlfriend, Koi (Ratnamon Ratchiratham), and that crocodile. Business gets even more serious once Day discovers the rumors are indeed true: Koi is pregnant with his baby. Lumprapleong didn’t come here to play around.
The Pool is a low budget, riotous experience that throws every possible random misfortune upon its characters until they can take no more. It’s sadistic, but not stomach-turningly so. Since it’s bookended, from the start you know these characters will most likely survive, but not before Lumprapleong has hit Day so hard with everything he’s got (Croc Bites! Dehydration! Pro-life conversations!).
But hey – at least at the end of the day Day and Koi somehow manage to find some fresh Pizza Hut pizza to munch upon in their torturous week of abandonment.
The Pool
Texas Premiere
Tue., Sept. 24, 5:25pm: Director Ping Lumpraploeng in attendance.
This article appears in September 20 • 2019.