How to Watch a Movie in 15 Easy Steps
TikTok users are falling down rabbit holes where feature films are offered one 10-minute clip at a time.
In the indie thriller 12 Feet Deep, a pair of sisters find themselves trapped in a pool under a heavy fiberglass cover. They scream; they pound; they negotiate with a janitor who robs them instead of freeing them.
I learned all of this from TikTok, where for months I’ve watched clips of this seemingly random, small-budget film ricochet across the platform. Six years after it was released to little fanfare (its Rotten Tomatoes page doesn’t mention a single review from a professional critic), 12 Feet Deep is finding its audience one clip at a time. A two-minute part posted to TikTok in January got more than 90 million views. It’s not an apples-to-apples comparison, but for some perspective, about 95 million people .
