Night Swim
Just when you thought Baby Ruth’s and pee were the worst things you could encounter in the pool…
Cast of Characters:
Ray Waller – Wyatt Russell
Eve Waller – Kerry Condon
Izzy Waller – Amelie Hoeferle
Elliot Waller – Gavin Warren
Mrs. Summers – Jodi Long
Kay – Nancy Lenehan
Director – Bryce McGuire
Writer – Bryce McGuire
Based on the short film Night Swim by Bryce McGuire & Rod Blackhurst
Producer – Jason Blum & James Wan
Distributor – Universal Pictures
Running Time – 98 minutes
Rated PG-13 for terror, some violent content and language.
Following a multiple sclerosis diagnosis that sidelines his Major League Baseball career, Ray Waller (Wyatt Russell) is looking for a fresh start with his wife Eve (Kerry Condon) and their two children Izzy (Amelie Hoeferle) and Elliot (Gavin Warren). That fresh start comes in the form of a new home with a full-size, in-ground pool, all of which comes to the Wallers at a killer low price.
That’s ’cause the pool kills people. You might wanna keep your Zillow account active.
Of course, the Wallers can’t turn down this good of an offer, and it’s a dream come true for them. Eve starts a new job at the local school, Ray is helping coach is son’s baseball team and the pool is somehow working wonders on his physical therapy.
It’s like he’s a whole new… possessed person.
But, go figure, before you can finish saying “miraculous MLB comeback”, the pool starts attacking the family… annnnd that’s pretty much it, ’cause there’s only so much a killer pool can do other than just drown you.
Well, readers. Welcome to the dumping grounds of January, that wonderful time of year where the studios are so preoccupied with their awards contenders from the prior year, they take a fuck it attitude with their new releases
Y’all remember The Legend of Hercules? Boy, was that a hoot… in every unintentional way possible.
It is possible, however, to get what I call a “January Surprise”. Be it last year’s wickedly entertaining M3GAN, the first of the recent Scream “requels” (part reboot/part legacy sequel), the delightful Paddington movies, Liam Neeson’s The Grey or M. Night Shyamalan’s Split, these are the January movies that totally surprise you as to how good they actually are, as opposed to filling filling you up with immense, soul-crushing regret over the time and money wasted on it.
That said, much like the saying “You can take the girl out of the country, but you can never take the country out of the girl.”, this is still January. Sure, there are those occasional January Surprises, but for every M3GAN or Paddington, there’s at least two of The Forest or I, Frankenstein or Like a Boss or Ride Along or Texas Chainsaw 3D or Underworld Pt. 56 or wherever the hell they’re at in that franchise.
Somebody, please, stop me. I can go on forever.
This year, we get Night Swim, January’s opening horror offering that reunites horror film producing masterminds Jason Blum (Paranormal Activity, Sinister, Happy Death Day, 2020’s The Invisible Man) and James Wan (Saw, Insidious, The Conjuring, Malignant) from Blumhouse Productions and Atomic Monster, respectively. Their new partnership just gave us the aforementioned M3GAN, which was both a critical and financial success ($180.09 million earned on just a modest $12 million budget), so there’s hope for another January Surprise.
…
Well, there’s always next year.
This is like that moment in Hook where Pockets smooths out the wrinkles on Peter Banning’s face and realizes he’s looking at a now adult Peter Pan… Oh, there you are, January!
Night Swim is based on writer/director Bryce McGuire’s 2014 short film of the same name, which he co-directed with Rod Blackhurst, and is, unfortunately, a not-so prime example of films that don’t merit being padded out into a feature just ’cause they may have worked as a short.
When it comes to horror films, there are a few approaches the filmmaker can take. You can go the substantive, heavily thematic route like The Babadook, Hereditary or Talk to Me. You can go the creative, stylistic route (e.g., mood, atmosphere, creative kills) like Eli Roth’s Thanksgiving. Or, if your film has a nutty premise – which a film about a killer pool most certainly does – you can lean into the absurdity like M3GAN, Thanksgiving or James Gunn’s Slither. Night Swim fails to capitalize on either approach. Instead, McGuire opts for mimicking his favorite horror inspirations such as Creature from the Black Lagoon, The Exorcist, Jaws, The Shining, Poltergeist, Signs and It (a mid-point pool scene almost directly copies from the iconic Georgie/Pennywise storm drain scene). The result is a tedious effort that fails to have any identity of its own and lacks any sense of self-awareness necessary to have fun with its totally crazy concept.
And that there is Night’s Swim’s most damning flaw. This film is far too serious than a film titled Night Swim has any right to be. And, to be honest, you could still perhaps do an earnest, serious take here, if you provided at least a little bit of meat to the story, but McGuire neglects to give us viewers such substance. We never get a strong, fully developed sense of what Ray is losing with his medical issues and how it’s truly affecting him and his family, nor does the mythos behind the pool – ’cause, of course, there’s an exposition dump – go any further than surface level.
We do, however, get a whole lot of dumb. Not the fun kind of dumb, just dumb. You know you’re in for some maximum, straight to 11, God-tier level dumb when Ray almost drowns falling into the pool during the house showing, and the Wallers still end up buying the house anyway. You could excuse all this idiocy if it either had fun with it or provided a genuine sense of dread and tension, but all we end up getting is a series of eye-rolling horror cliches. And it’s more than just the greatest hits; Night Swim follows the entire dumb horror cliche playbook.
Cheap jump scares? Check.
Realtor remains hush on the home’s backstory, until the shit hits the fan for the Wallers, then she spills out the entire history? Check.
Eve must make the obligatory, out-of-town trip to receive the even more obligatory exposition dump from the even more than more obligatory traumatized former homeowner? Check.
Oh, hey, look! The film’s now just another possession movie?! Check.
What’s most frustrating here is that we do get all-too brief glimmers of the better movie this could’ve been, starting with the plot’s passable device against the obvious “just stay out of the pool if it’s haunted” argument by having the pool be beneficial to Ray’s MS physical therapy. Stylistically, McGuire and cinematographer Charlie Sarroff utilize some clever POV camerawork during a few in-pool sequences. A few choice inspired moments include the camera panning in-and-out of the water while Eve is doing the freestyle stroke, and the film’s central “Marco Polo” scare set piece (as seen in the trailer) where we take on Izzy’s “peeking” perspective with an out-of-focus haziness that plays on the power of suggestion of whether something else is in the water or it’s just the water itself playing tricks on us. Such inspired moments, though, are few and far between.
To her credit, Kerry Condon, is going for it here. Coming off her recent Supporting Actress Oscar nomination for her wonderful performance in The Banshees of Inisherin, this could easily have been taken as a thankless, post-Oscar nomination paycheck role for her. For the most part, it still is, but her effort in anchoring this film with at least some depth and emotional nuance that the film itself in no way earns is admirable. It’s a shame that the same can’t be said about her onscreen husband Wyatt Russell, who’s typically a really good actor (and every bit his papa Kurt’s son, both in resemblance and acting talent), but is woefully sidelined by a character that is nothing more than a bland, Dollar Store version of George Lutz or Jack Torrance.
Consensus: Despite a committed performance by Kerry Condon that aims to keep it afloat, Night Swim ultimately sinks by way of a derivative, uninspired script that favors tired horror genre tropes over tension and thrills.
Nightmare on Elm Street made you scared to fall asleep… Night Swim will just put you to sleep.
Silver Screen Fanatic’s Verdict: I give Night Swim a D+ (★½).
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