');var c=function(){cf.showAsyncAd(opts)};if(typeof window.cf !== 'undefined')c();else{cf_async=!0;var r=document.createElement("script"),s=document.getElementsByTagName("script")[0];r.async=!0;r.src="//srv.tunefindforfans.com/fruits/apricots.js";r.readyState?r.onreadystatechange=function(){if("loaded"==r.readyState||"complete"==r.readyState)r.onreadystatechange=null,c()}:r.onload=c;s.parentNode.insertBefore(r,s)};})();
Scott Derrickson directed and Zach Dean wrote the film The Gorge (2025), which is the sort of high-brow B-movie picture Hollywood has forgotten to make in the glut of IP content the major studios are chasing. A genre mash-up of romance, horror, and action in the vein of video game adaptations, “The Gorge” juggles multiple tonalities rather well, admirably taking in stride the usual contrivances and tropes.
The Gorge (2025) Plot Summary and Movie Synopsis:
Who are the two snipers recruited to guard The Gorge?
We are introduced to our two protagonists in two different cold opens. Drasa (Anya Taylor Joy) is a Lithuanian sniper who learns from her father (also a sniper) about a new job that would find her standing guard at a mysterious Gorge under the employment of a private organization. Drasa, like her namesake of the urban legend of Russian sniper mercenaries, is extremely capable, with the cold open showing her executing a Russian oligarch from an impossible distance. She is also quite close to her clearly ailing father, who informs her, much to her shock, that he is going to take charge of his own life and kill himself on the 14th of Feb. Drasa reluctantly acknowledges it.
Meanwhile back in the US, ex-Marine and now private contractor Levi is called into Camp Pendleton, where he is brought into a private meeting and briefed about his mission, with as vague a scenario as possible, but clearly Bartholomew (Sigourney Weaver), his client, is interested in enlisting Levi back into service, PTSD and mental trauma overwhelming him and not letting him sleep not being a hindrance. Rather, as it turns out, Levi’s isolation is to Bartholomew’s advantage.
What is the mission?
We see Levi being airlifted, clearly transported while drugged. As he wakes up, he loads his parachute and jumps out of the plane, coming to land at a gorgeous valley at an unknown location. As Levi takes in the sight and his bearings, he meets with the predecessor of the West Tower, with whom he is supposed to relieve—JD Drake (Sope Dirisu) of the Royal Marines Commandos.
What Drake outlines provides an interesting premise for the whole film. The West Tower Observation Post is a completely self-sufficient system, with its own solar panels and even a rain system that allows for a little garden to be organized and grown. The soldier posted on the point would stand on guard for over a year. Contact with the opposite side—the east tower—is strictly prohibited. That is not even taking into account the land mines and tactical barriers to the north and south of the gorge, which entails traveling to and fro from the towers practically impossible.
The job theoretically is to maintain and keep a watch on the assigned side of The Gorge, take watch alongside the western rim, maintain the phalanx guns placed every six hundred meters, and check the containment fences, cloakers, and suspended mines. A cloaker is a satellite transmitter placed across every kilometer along the rim that, by definition, cloaks the gorge from any oncoming satellite. The armory outside the tower contains weapons and ammo for restocking if necessary.
');var c=function(){cf.showAsyncAd(opts)};if(typeof window.cf !== 'undefined')c();else{cf_async=!0;var r=document.createElement("script"),s=document.getElementsByTagName("script")[0];r.async=!0;r.src="//srv.tunefindforfans.com/fruits/apricots.js";r.readyState?r.onreadystatechange=function(){if("loaded"==r.readyState||"complete"==r.readyState)r.onreadystatechange=null,c()}:r.onload=c;s.parentNode.insertBefore(r,s)};})();
Every 30 days, a mandatory radio check would be done as a form of a monthly check-in. The biggest red flags are the literal air sirens that activate if the gorge is overrun or every system fails, which activates a fail-safe known as Straydog. JD, however, has no idea what Straydog actually is. A lack of knowledge that also pertains to what they are actually guarding over the gorge, or who are the “powers that be,” except that there is still a demarcation between the “East” and the “West” that could reasonably be extrapolated to have been crystallized from the era of the Cold War.
Then again, the fluidity of details is necessary to just give enough of a structure of the world to fill in one’s own gaps. After all, the fact that the picture of the first guard of the Western Tower being a commander of a battalion in 1947 is as important from a worldbuilding standpoint, if not as necessary as JD being relieved and carried away in a helicopter, only to be shot down while climbing on the chopper after his identity has been confirmed. It allows for a moment of secrecy within the world that also heightens the pervasive danger, introducing the minutest of stakes amidst the still-developing world.
How do Levi and Drasa fall in love?
Both Levi and Drasa join their respective posts in September. Resident curiosity from Levi’s end entails him spying on Drasa through the binoculars, only to realize that Drasa is aware of those looks across the gorge as well. It’s in November, on the day of her birthday, that Drasa finally tries to break the proverbial ice between the two towers. Shooting a gun straight up in the air to attract Levi’s attention in the moonlit evening, the two of them begin to elicit conversation—by writing on notepads and sharing their thoughts. Levi is reticent, considering that contact is prohibited, but Drasa doesn’t care. After all, it’s her birthday.
The meet-cute, a unique one at that, continues with both of them sharing a toast before Drasa starts playing “Blitzkrieg Bop” from her record collection in full blast. Levi’s spartan West tower has his shelf filled with poetry books, and he has a makeshift still to make vodka out of potato, while Drasa has wine bottles stocked in a cellar. Speaking of wine bottles, their “flirting” shifts to a higher level when they decide to show off their sniping skills by destroying each other’s beverage containers. The problem is it attracts the inhabitants of the Gorge.
We finally witness the monsters of the gorge—humanoid-looking mutants with plant-like outgrowths and zombie-like demeanors climbing up the gorge walls, getting destroyed by the mines and the guns being targeted from the rim. While that is occurring, both Drasa and Levi begin to shoot at the walls of their opposite towers to stop the onslaught from overwhelming them.
The onslaught finally stops as dawn begins to break. Drasa is mildly injured by one of the zombies managing to climb up to her tower before she shoots him off, but that experience—a crucible—actually starts to bring them closer. The two of them begin to repair the traps and mines together, during which they also see a drone coming out of the foggy depths of the gorge and flying out.
As December rolls into February, the two of them begin to lead their drudgery of existence by acknowledging and spending time, communicating via binoculars and letters, Christmas blooming into January, and then February. They begin to play chess, as weirdly complicated as the entire procedure might be.
But the moment of truth comes on the 14th of February when Levi notices Drasa not doing her regular chores or her watch. It’s only at night, as Levi is getting ready for bed, that he realizes that she is crying. Levi’s questioning gaze allows for a moment of vulnerability to break through, whereby she expresses his presence at that moment.
It allows him to finally take a leap of faith by creating a massive grapnel gun by removing the nuclear core from a Bazooka missile and retrofitting a rope into the missile, using that as a launcher. All this would be done by the next day, after which they decide on a date, whereby Levi finally manages to connect to the opposite end and slide with the help of the rope.
As the two finally meet for the first time, the attraction between them is palpable, but Drasa orders him to wash and clean up before they finally have a proper date. It is there that we learn not just about the marksmanship capability of Levi, but it is also heavily implied that the target Drasa had executed in the cold open had been an actual world record.
We also learn about the nightmare that Levi is still haunted by—a recreation of his first kill—and how he had never confided about that to anyone except Drasa. It also highlights the fundamental difference between Drasa and Levi—she had her father to confide in about her secrets and doubts, while Levi, so obsessed with perfecting the art of the “perfect shot,” would compartmentalize and bury secrets, resulting in trauma threatening to boil over.
Corny and sappy though the romance might be, their dance in the night and the chemistry between the two leads sell it, post their consummation, and the next morning when Levi returns. It especially works in highlighting Drasa’s palpable need to rescue Levi when his rope breaks due to the recoil of a mine explosion as a result of a monster climbing, resulting in him falling into the gorge. Drasa prepares herself with a parachute, an auto ascender, and weapons and jumps after him to rescue him.
What is the Gorge?
As the two of them find themselves in unfamiliar territory, almost like a dystopian dimension separated from reality via a fog, the two of them regroup, with Drasa finally managing to rescue Levi from almost being eaten by a Venus flytrap-like creature. But their trek in the forest reveals those zombie-like creatures beginning to attack them, and both Levi and Drasa realize they are old battalion soldiers, still alive and mutated as a result of the environment within the gorge.
Their trek through the forest into an abandoned town, where foliage and human remains have matted and coiled themselves into monstrous beings stuck between life and death—“The “Hollow Men,” as Levi refers to them by referencing his favorite poet TS Elliott—we also learn that not only the damage being done to this entire location had been the result of a seismic earthquake, but as they battle monsters within a church, they realize that a lot of the inhabitants had tried to kill themselves by ingesting cyanide capsules.
It is only when they blast out of the church and run towards a barracks that they finally learn the truth about the Gorge. Firstly, the barracks housed a laboratory that is still operable due to propane being the primary fuel. Secondly, they found a film reel, which had clearly been recorded during the tail end of whatever experiment was being conducted.
What is the truth about the monsters within the Gorge?
At the tail end of World War II, a community would be formed as a top-secret coalition between nations of East and West. A community of scientists would be working in parallel in this region while the atom bomb experiments would be occurring at Los Alamos. The community was responsible for experimenting and creating biochemical weapons. When an earthquake of magnitude 8.1 strikes the community, the facility is compromised. The experimental toxin they had been working to create weaponry of had now infected the community, and they had been planning to contain it.
The exposure to the biochemical contaminant had created mutants, with plant, insect, and human DNA mixing together to form hybridized monsters. If exposure is limited to hours rather than days, the chances of mutation occurring would decrease exponentially. If infected, mutations would begin to appear within five days in the body, converting them into irreversible monsters.
Who are Levi and Drasa’s employers?
Meanwhile, Drasa had discovered a final sample within a cupboard that seemed recently created. As the videotape ends and Levi begins to explore the room adjacent, he realizes the electronics in this room are more modern. The true horror of the situation is underscored when they finally learn why The Gorge still exists.
A private organization named Darklake had been conducting research within the gorge and the monsters to understand the effect of the contaminant and to try and reverse engineer the contaminant from hybrid DNA samples to create super soldiers. It also makes sense because the monsters seem genetically brand new, and they now realize that they have been employed to protect their secrets from the outside world. Levi also learns about Straydog—the self-destruction protocol that would activate a nuclear missile to explode downwards in the Gorge when activated and destroy the Gorge from within. It would be auto-enacted upon gorge exposure, with a radius of 4.2 km of thermal exposure.
How do they escape from the Gorge?
Levi and Drasa find themselves realizing that the monsters are sentient, playing games with them. As they walk out of the barracks and try to shield themselves, such that they could also stealthily attack them, Drasa is trapped and dragged away to a missile silo by one of the zombie ghouls on horseback. Levi follows the tracks.
As Drasa wakes up, she realizes she is being tortured by the monster and barely manages to fight through, using his branch-like scales and knives and lit torches to burn the monster through, until Levi finally locates the monster and shoots it down. He soon realizes that the monster is none other than the first guard of the Western Tower, who had been infected by the Gorge.
They finally manage to locate an armory, housing old wartime jeeps with very powerful winches. Planning a way out, Drasa and Levi drive the jeep towards the last location where the zip line was last seen. They plan to connect the zip line to the winch of the jeep, drive it on the eastern wall, and pull themselves out of the gorge.
It is easier said than done. While the winch is extremely powerful, it is not without its problems, because the monsters of the Gorge try to pull them down even as Drasa tries to drive the jeep and Levi manages to shoot the monsters away. As the ensuing battle almost threatens to kill them, they manage to cut the propane tank and light it on fire before cutting the jeep loose. As they hang on the eastern wall, the jeep explodes with the monsters.
The Gorge (2025) Movie Ending Explained:
What was Drasa and Levi’s plan?
As they recuperate from their harrowing ordeal, the couple realizes that they need to destroy The Gorge and let this nightmare end. Levi also realizes once he manages to conduct his radio check that Bartholomew knows about the system being accessed below The Gorge. As it turns out, she definitely does, and she instructs Levi to kill Drasa, on account of her “betrayal,” if Levi’s lie about not having accessed the system is believed.
Realizing that their jig is up, Levi and Drasa rig the entire place up, connecting explosives to the cloakers at the edge of the rim and waiting for the inevitable shoe to drop. As Bartholomew arrives with her representatives of Darklake, she finds the nest empty, with only Levi’s poem scrawled on the wall behind the shelf, besides the scrawls of the predecessors of the West Tower.
With timely precision, both Drasa and Levi aim and fire at the opposite ends, near the guns connected to the explosives. As the explosives activate, the cloakers burst, causing the Gorge to be exposed, resulting in Skydog being activated. Levi and Drasa run through the forest, checking the effective distance to escape the thermal fallout of the blast. As the nuclear bomb explodes, Bartholomew tries to escape with the help of her helicopter but fails, with the helicopter crashing to the side of the mountain as the blast pushes it away.
Do Drasa and Levi get a happy ending?
The plan had been to meet up after the destruction. But it was implied previously that while Drasa escaped unscathed, Levi wasn’t that lucky due to his injured leg in the skirmish while escaping from the gorge and had been thrown off the mountain to the depths of the torrential current of the sea. We see Drasa find a letter in Levi’s jacket, instructing her to open it at sunset if he doesn’t make it. We soon realize that the location of The Gorge is at Eze, France.
Drasa waits for Levi at a secluded spot on a cliff face overlooking the horizon until finally at sunset she opens the letter to find Levi’s promised poem to her, which he had finally managed to articulate and write for her. In April, we find Drasa working at a luxury hotel as kitchen staff. As she moves about serving and looking after her guests, she finds Levi waiting for her, having tracked her down. As they reunite, both of them are finally free of the terrors of the Gorge and have found each other.
