NIGHT SWIM reviewed by GREG KING
Director: Bryce McGuire
Stars: Wyatt Russell, Kerry Condon, Amelie Hoeferle, Gavin Warren, Elijah J Roberts, Jodi Long, Eddie Martinez.
From Blumhouse, which specialises in low budget horror films, and producer James Wan (he of the Saw franchise, etc) comes this film about a possessed swimming pool. But, despite an intriguing premise, Night Swim ultimately becomes a little too derivative.
It opens in 1992, with a young girl named Rebecca drowning in a backyard pool. This quickly establishes a sinister undercurrent and lets us know that there is something wrong with the pool. Cut to the present day and another family moves into the property where that incident occurred. They are unaware of the tragic history behind the property they have just acquired.
Ray Waller (Wyatt Russell, from Blaze, etc) is a former baseball star whose career was cut short when he was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. His doctor suggests that water therapy could help with his condition. Because of Ray’s illness the family has been moving around a lot, and so a house with a pool seems ideal, giving them a chance to settle down for a change.
The pool has been abandoned for a long time and takes a lot of work by the family to clean it out and get it ready for use. But the family – wife Eve (Kerry Condon, from The Banshees Of Inisherin, etc), son Elliot (Gavin Warren, from First Man, etc) and teenage daughter Izzy (Amelie Hoeferle) – throw themselves into the task. While pulling weeds from a drain outlet Ray is cut and bleeds profusely. The local pool maintenance man informs them that the pool is apparently self-sustaining as it takes water from an underground spring in the area.
Ray uses the pool regularly and finds that his strength is returning and that the cut to his hand has healed. But the pool also seems to exert a strange power over Ray. And when both Izzy and Elliot use the pool they sometimes see strange visions. Eve begins to worry about Ray and his increasingly strange behaviour. During a pool party with the neighbours she learns of some mysterious disappearances of children that are related to the house and the pool. Eve investigates further and tracks down one of the previous owners of the house. She learns that, while the water in the pool may have healing powers, it requires some sort of sacrifice. Eve fears that son Elliot is somehow more vulnerable and in danger.
Driven by an interesting premise Night Swim is an extension of a critically acclaimed five-minute short horror film created by writer/director Bryce McGuire and Rob Blackhurst in 2014 in which a woman was terrorised by her swimming pool. In his sophomore feature film, following 2018’s Unfollowed, McGuire has expanded the short film, adding more levels of characterisation and emotional involvement, and of course plenty of jump scares into the material. Night Swim is atmospheric and creepy enough for much of the time, its final act seems cliched and follows a predictable arc. McGuire has been heavily influenced by classic horror films such as Poltergeist and Jaws, and he plays on our childhood fears of both the unknown and the water. Appropriately Charlie Sarroff’s underwater cinematography is suitably moody and creates an unsettling mood.
Both Russell and Condon deliver solid performances here, with Condon particularly getting to show some strength and determination.
But in stretching the original concept to 99 minutes McGuire ultimately dilutes much of its initial power as the film taps into the usual tropes of the genre.
★★★
