Night Swim

Movie Name: Night Swim
Year of Release: 2024
Director: Bryce McGuire
Starring: Kerry Condon, Wyatt Russell, Amélie Hoeferle, Gavin Warren, Jodi Long, Nancy Lenehan, Eddie Martinez, Elijah Roberts, Ben Sinclair, Ellie Araiza, Rahnuma Panthaky, Ayazhan Dalabayeva
Genre: Horror, Thriller
Score out of ten (whole numbers only): 3
Watch it on Amazon

Synopsis and Review

"Night Swim" is the first release from the merger of Jason Blum's production entity Blumhouse, and James Wan's Atomic Monster. It's also the feature directorial debut for Bryce McGuire. The narrative focuses on the Waller family, comprised of father Ray, mother Eve, and children Izzy and Elliot. They're seeking a new permanent residence, after Ray has been forced into retirement from a professional career in baseball, following his diagnosis with MS. They decide to go with a house that has a pool in the backyard, since they've been advised that swimming and water exercise may help with the illness. As the family starts to settle, they realize they have to do some major cleaning in and around the pool area. Ray scratches his hand while unclogging it, prompting some dark water to surface, and they have to resort to a pool specialist for some help as a result of that. The specialist informs them that the pool is somewhat self-sustaining since it takes its water from an underground spring located in the area. The more time Ray spends in the pool the better he seems to be feeling. However some strange occurrences start taking place, starting with the disappearance of the family's cat, followed by Izzy and Elliot getting attacked by something in the pool itself. The family decides to throw a pool party to get more familiar with the community and some of the neighbors. During the party, the realtor who presented them with the house, tells them that the house's previous owners lost their daughter in that pool. During the same time, Ray and one of the neighbors, engage in a harmless aquatic game, but some entity possesses Ray and forces him to almost kill one of the kids they were playing with. Eve becomes more and more concerned, and decides to investigate what happened with the previous owners.

Creating effective horror/thriller features can be a challenging task, since the goal is typically to marry enough character development, with an original premise where the scares are effective and keep the audience focused on what's coming next. James Wan and Leigh Whannell have been able to do so with "Insidious", and James Wan has also been able to do so with "The Conjuring" franchise (with varying degrees of success). Bryce McGuire with "Night Swim" does have a good premise in place, with the nuclear family once again being threatened by a supernatural entity in the apparent placidness of their new home. Sadly and in this case, this entity and its existence is poorly expanded upon and illustrated. Whereas with Tobe Hooper's "Poltergeist" for instance, there was an illustration of the progressive escalation that the menacing entity was producing, with "Night Swim" there's a realization that the menace is located within the pool, but not much additional context is actually provided about the legend surrounding the pool (its mysticism), or for that matter the characters that are now being targeted by it. There's nothing particularly memorable or distinctive about these characters, aside from the fact that the parental figure has a disability that is rendering him in a precarious situation. Even for a slight B-movie of sorts, which this film tries to be, this character development is remarkably thin, with the interactions between the family members also feeling underdeveloped and under-illustrated. The supporting characters are equally very generic and there's not much color to them at all. What's left are some interesting details from this universe that the characters get pulled into from the pool, but even that feels a bit undercooked. The cast tries their best to bring these characters to life, with highlights going to Kerry Condon and Wyatt Russell. The production team is solid, with highlights going to Charlie Sarroff's cinematography, Mark Korven's score and Hillary Gurtler's production design. It's not a particularly memorable film.