Shallow, but a nice night watch Cinemax
In many reviews of “Night Swim,” we’ve been told that it was actually the first in which the main villain was — strangely or not — a haunted swimming pool. This fact may come as a surprise since we have already seen horror films about countless haunted, cursed and deadly products, for example a bed, a sofa, a refrigerator, jeans, drones, kites and even donuts. The commonality is that you probably haven’t heard of these films, most of which are mediocre horrors produced on a ridiculous budget. Movies that the only reason to watch is to laugh at them.
“Night Swim” claims to be harsher than those films. It is the first film created after the merger between the two horror giants: Jason Blum’s Blumhouse (“Halloween”, “Insidious”, “Paranormal Activity”, “The Purge”, “Get Out”, “Us” and more) and J. James Wan’s “Atomic Monster”, which is partly responsible for the films in the vast cinematic universe of “The Conjuring “. The problem is that while the film has some beautiful moments, it manages to make the bizarre subject matter cliché and more importantly – not really scary or innovative. Read the full review of “Night Swim.”
Meet the Wallers
You probably know it from countless horror movies: a family moves into a new house and discovers a little too late that it’s haunted and has an unpleasant history. The animal is one of the first victims; the children are the first to suspect that something strange is going on here and that a demonic entity is controlling a family member. This is the main plot of “Night Swim,” with the main difference – for better or worse – being that the main enemy here is pool fucking.
The family moving into the new house is the Wallers. The father, Ray (Wyatt Russell, son of Kurt Russell and Goldie Hawn), is a baseball player who had to retire after being diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. The mother, Kerry Condon (Oscar nominee for “Ghosts of Inheritance,” and also the voice behind FRIDAY in the Marvel Cinematic Universe films) accompanies him in the fight, hoping that this time they will be stuck at home for enough years, as opposed to a baseball career full of transfers and transitions. Izzy (Amélie O’Farrell, “The Hunger Games: A Ballad of Snakes and Songbirds”) is a beautiful young woman interested in one of her classmates. The family unit includes the reclusive Elliot (Gavin Warren, “First Man”), who tries to play baseball under his father’s heavy shadow. There’s also a cat, but let’s just say you shouldn’t expect to get too attached to it.
When they move into the new house, everything seems perfect. They discover a swimming pool with healing properties and natural spring water. At first, it even helps Ray recover from the illness. But little by little, the family members find themselves confronted with various conventions of pool horror films: mysterious noises, people who appear above the water and disappear, lights that flash to prove that the house is haunted (or that an electrician needs to be called), scary ghosts (including one who loves the game “Marco Polo”) and much more. Family members only realized later that this pool, which no one had used for 15 years, had a dark history. In 1992, a young girl disappeared into the pool during a night swim. And it turns out she wasn’t the only one.
Night Swimming: Like Haunted House Movies, Only With a Pool
“Night Swim” is based on a 2004 short film by Rod Blackhurst and Bryce McGuire. The film, which is approximately four minutes long, features roughly the same idea repeated in the film: a girl swims in a pool at night and sees a mysterious figure in the water. Bryce McGuire once said that the film was semi-autobiographical and referenced his childhood experiences as a kid growing up in Florida surrounded by oceans and fearing hurricanes, drowning, shark attacks, etc. “I saw Jaws when I was 10,” he said. “We had a swimming pool and I remember being alone in the pool at night when my younger brother was turning off the light. I was convinced, without a doubt, that the water was an abyss.”
It’s hard to say that this short film is too impressive or that it succeeds in conveying to the viewer the fears of this boy who grew up in Florida. This demonstrates a certain mastery of the creators in the rules of the game. For example, you could photograph the swimming pool from angles that contribute to the tension. Can it be made into a successful horror film? That’s another question because we noticed great difficulties in transforming a short story into a feature film.
Sometimes the problem is that they choose to present a considerable backstory that isn’t interesting (“Five Nights at Freddy’s,” for example), or the film feels like several poorly put together shorts. “Night Swim” is a bit smeared and does not justify itself as a complete film, which lasts an hour and a half. However, in my opinion, this is not due to the combination of back stories or the interweaving of too many subplots but mainly because the film is predictable and a bit repetitive.
How to Make a Pool Villain
The creators tried everything to make the pool the real enemy here. Viewers see the pool from many angles, from above or out of the water, day or night, and sometimes with black streaks. Despite all attempts worthy of appreciation, the pool only partially succeeds in scaring because it’s still just a pool and you can’t swim in it if you think there might be ghosts. The main problem here is that the scary parts, especially the scary ones, are expected because we’ve seen them before in many horror films.
If we exclude from the picture the fact that the most important place of action here is the swimming pool, we get a film which works according to the known formulas. Some scenes here may remind you of movies like “Poltergeist” (I hope they didn’t put real monsters in the pool this time), “Jaws”, “Smile”, “Creature from the Blue Lagoon” and others. In this regard, the film could have taken a few points of originality from 2021’s The Deep House, a haunted house film that takes place almost entirely underwater.
The way the story is structured is also not very innovative and includes some scenes that should be in this type of film: for example, a horror encounter with one of the previous tenants, in which a demon enters her body, so she says scary things in a threatening tone. Or the boy encountering a ghost, or whatever, which exposes him for the first time to this mysterious missing girl.
Night swimming: more familiar themes, well-known inspirations
Bryce McGuire, who has directed short films thus far, is responsible for directing and writing here, while Bryce co-wrote the screenplay. It is obvious that the creators were aware of the horror genre, and here too you can see it in both positive and negative ways. The film reminds us of certain works of Stephen King, like “It” and “The Shining”, for example, in the aspect of monstrous parenthood. The problem is that these processes are not sufficiently described. The parents’ change and the way they handle the situation needs to be more convincing. The film presents the American dream and the dangers of suburban life, a recurring theme in many horror films. They almost always include a hamburger party scene that gets out of hand because there’s nothing more American than that.
It must be recognized that the actors try to present often convincing performances, even if there are a few cases where the dialogues do not serve them. Russell proves that he is more than “the son of” and manages to convince as a father determined to face his illness, but a little less with the twist that his character goes through (in my opinion, mainly due to the scenario).
It’s interesting to wonder if some of the way he portrays the character is influenced by his personal experience, similar to what the character went through: White Russell was a former ice hockey player who retired due to injury. His father, Kurt Russell, was a baseball player who also had to retire due to injury. Condon is a very talented actress who is also trying but has little work. Children generally do a reasonable job, and in some cases they don’t behave completely stupidly.
What have audiences and critics said about Night Watch?
In 2023, the collaboration between Blumhouse and Atomic Monster – then still unofficially – included Megan. The film opened the year, was highly successful at the box office, and received relatively positive reviews. It was quite surprising because the start of the calendar year is not ideal for cinema. After the rush of summer blockbusters and before the Oscars, some studios and production companies send relatively junior films at the start of the year. “Megan” changed the rules a bit, and the question that arises is whether “Night Swim,” which will be released in 2024 – this time under the official union of the two giant companies – will follow last year’s success or other previous uninspiring films.
Comparing the film to Megan, it is clear that its box office achievements are far less impressive in every respect. So far, it has grossed over $47 million worldwide. It is indeed a reasonable amount compared to the budget (around $15 million), but it does not come close to the enormous success of Megan (which collected around $180 million at the worldwide box office and spawned a sequel which will arrive in May 2025).
Critics and audiences haven’t been very forgiving of “Night Swim,” which means we’re not sure we’ll see a sequel here. And I’m not sure that’s the case because, at times, it felt like the creators were trying to squeeze the lemon out of the pool as much as possible.
Should you watch swimming at night?
“Night Swim” is a cliché film that, although it offers a new concept on paper, fails to put it into practice. The film had to be much more extreme to leave a mark. If we refer to it with an analogy from the world of swimming pools, we can say that it mainly stays in shallow waters and does not reach the depths that would make it more memorable. To its credit, the film had a few decent shots, included some well-directed scenes, and was watchable most of the time, like swimming in a pool. It is therefore in my eyes more suitable for night viewing without commitment and without expectations.
More importantly, after finally having a horror movie about a haunted swimming pool, we need to think about other items that haven’t yet played a role in horror. How about horror films that focus on a toaster, a murderous Bimba, or a roasted eggplant that spirals out of control?
