Twigs - Night Swim
Potential for depth, winds up in the shallow end.
[Note: This review will discuss elements of Night Swim that were revealed in promotional material, such as trailers. If you’re someone who enjoys going into recent movies knowing as little as possible, you may want to skip reading this review.]
January has often been considered the month where new movies go to die.
For whatever reason, the majority of films released in the first month of the year often don’t get the same critical and commercial success as movies that come out later on. It’s an odd time, with the new year just beginning, for the movies that are released to be cursed with quality issues. Night Swim is no different, with director and writer Bryce McGuire taking his impressively scary 4-minute YouTube short film and stretching it out to nearly an hour and 40 minutes. While this has worked for some movies in the past, the presentation of this horror film doesn’t lend itself well to a feature length runtime: A haunted pool in a backyard begins to have a mysterious impact on a family that moves into the new house. It’s a barebones premise that I was skeptical about at first, but soon grew to have mixed feelings for as the movie went on.
The idea behind the movie is rather simple to summarize: The Waller family moves into a new home, where the patriarch of the family, Ray, decides to start using the pool to help with a degenerative illness. A former baseball player, Ray soon learns the pool is giving him benefits that are almost supernatural in nature. However, it soon becomes clear an evil force is living inside, trying to latch itself onto Ray. And tormenting his wife and children. The premise reminds me of a Stephen King short story, as it feels like the kind of tale he would have penned decades ago. The presentation also reminds me of the weaker adaptations of his films, making for a familiar yet none too pleasant experience.
One of the key elements of the film is that the pool’s demonic entity isn’t just bringing scares to the family for fun. There is a story here that has some level of intrigue, albeit one that doesn’t feel fully developed. If you’ve seen any generic possession story, the buildup and payoff is very similar with a few unique ideas thrown in. Conceptually, the idea of a pool that comes attached with a mysterious entity is interesting. It offers some unique scares somewhat reminiscent of beach scenes in monster movies like Jaws. McGuire’s visual flair is also very cryptic, with a number of interesting shots throughout the film that make it engaging. One shot near the end of the movie was also notably impressive, tying into the story in a way I thought was highly creative compared to the rest of the movie.
However, the film falters when it comes to the general writing of the story being presented. And, unfortunately, this is partially reflected in the advertisements for the movie. One key scene involves the daughter character, Izzy, getting attacked in the pool while playing Marco Polo with a boy she likes. The scene builds the tension slowly as she searches for him, until suddenly, the entity tries to drown her under the surface. Not only was this the most memorable scare in the movie, but it was shown in the trailer in a more succinct way than the movie presents. In the movie, the scene drags, with Izzy not opening her eyes despite being scared of the situation. Logical leaps like this in order to induce fear factor are prevalent throughout the movie. It makes the horror feel cheap, especially since other films produced by Blumhouse and Atomic Monster have been more engaging than this.
Which is a shame, because there are some elements to the film that were good. Wyatt Russell and Kerry Condon play the lead couple, both seasoned actors giving engaging performances in the scenes where they’re allowed to shine. Russell in particular was a standout, delivering a convincing performance for someone who is slowly influenced by some of the possible benefits the pool has. However, neither actor is able to save the movie from a rather generic script that makes little use of its pool-based premise. Throughout the movie, though, I wondered if there was anything else that could be done to bolster its premise. While some interesting bits of lore crop up throughout, the movie overall feels like something that didn’t need to be stretched out as long as it was.
Even so, I do believe McGuire is a good visual director, with many stunning shots throughout the film that were visually impressive or generally made sense given the scenes being presented. These included close-ups of gross, uncomfortable sequences of a demonic nature; suspenseful underwater shots that negated any and all sound for a heightened impact; high shots of the pool, foreboding foreshadowing for what comes next; and, once more, a particular shot at the very end that was both visually impressive and made sense given the story being told. All of these formed a movie that, had it been scripted in a different manner, could have been a decent horror flick. Instead, I was left unimpressed by the movie. It’s not so much that it was just a generic horror story with an interesting coat of paint—even though it was. It was more that there was nothing done to make it stand out or be terrifying compared to so many other films in the genre.
Overall, Night Swim is a movie that had more potential than it was willing to use. While the cinematography and acting were good, the story and scares were subpar. There is still potential given the premise of the movie. However, I feel like it would require someone visionary to make it an engaging horror thrill that can’t be solved by just…you know…putting the cover on the pool when things start getting weird. As I stated before, this felt more like a cheap adaptation of a Stephen King novel than it did a horror film that had anything interesting to present. Which is a shame, because McGuire is clearly a talented director when it comes to the visual presentation of horror. Despite my distaste for his feature film debut, I genuinely want to see more from him because of how visually engaging the movie was. I think if he teamed up with someone seasoned on the script for his next big release, it could be a terrifying time.
As for Night Swim, the only thing scary about it was just how uninteresting it was.
***
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