Night Swim (2024) Barely Makes a Splash with Its Familiar Supernatural Thrills
Title: Night Swim
First Non-Festival Release: January 4, 2024 (Theatrical Release)
Director: Bryce McGuire
Writer: Bryce McGuire, Rod Blackhurst
Runtime: 98 Minutes
Starring: Ray Waller, Kerry Condon, Gavin Warren
Where to Watch: Check out where to find it here
If you grew up with access to a swimming pool, odds are you had that recurring irrational fear that if you swam too far into the deep end, a shark would get you. Despite knowing that they cannot survive in such a small space in chlorinated water, surrounded by so many people, once the fear is put in your mind, it’s hard to shake as a kid. Night Swim takes advantage of this feeling of vulnerability by creating its own kind of predator in the water.
Former up-and-coming baseballer Ray Waller (Wyatt Russell) and his wife Eve (Kerry Condon) decide to move their kids Izzy (Amélie Hoeferle) and Elliot (Gavin Warren) to the suburbs for stability. Ray also needs to focus on his physical therapy, as his multiple sclerosis blunted his career from blooming into what it could have been. An off-handed comment made by a doctor about aquatherapy pushes Ray to advocate moving to a home with a pool so he can focus on getting better. Unfortunately, this pool isn’t going to let that happen, without a price.
Night Swim is a placid supernatural horror film that makes few splashes with its familiar scares.
It is evident that the team behind Night Swim had to greatly expand beyond the original short’s premise into a full-length feature. This leads to the team making some interesting choices for how the big bad in this film operates, as they are working backwards from the original conceit. Their landing idea is strong, which to say more would delve too much into spoilers, but the execution is murky to say the least. The attempts to tether the Wallers to their poolside home feel shoe-horned and don’t allow for sufficient tension for the family drama to broil.
Night Swim instead focuses more on the melodrama of it all, namely with patriarch, Ray. Ray’s obsession with returning to his glory days leads him down a path of no return, highlighting the dangers of not letting go of your past dreams. Baseball is a constant theme in this movie and how it has affected the lives of this family. Ray obviously has devoted his life to it while putting the needs of his family second until it came to his deteriorating health. Eve does everything she can to keep the family together and Ray sane while managing his illness. Izzy develops a strength for sports without passion and Elliot desperately seeks out his father’s affections in sport to please him.
This all means nothing when this pool begins affecting the family, primarily Ray. His compulsion to push himself further physically to prove himself to the world puts himself and his family at risk. And this is the root of the true conflict in Night Swim. Focus can be a beautiful thing in anyone’s life, but when tunnel vision takes over and replaces drive with reckless ambition it hurts you and others around you. Ray seeks admiration from everyone: his family, his neighbors, he even pushes himself to hit a home run at a middle school baseball practice. Night Swim shows us that there is a darkness in desire that needs to be tempered by reality, humility, and contentment.
The typical bump in the night scares plague Night Swim making most of the action feel stale and repetitive. Much of the frights surrounding the aquatic based horror film naturally occur in the family’s swimming pool. By doing so, however, it creates this problem where the film is static. Sure, it finds ways to move around but they don’t necessarily work in the film’s favor, often borrowing from far better films with better constructed plots. Outside of these few moments, Night Swim toys with its victims before attempting to drown them with a barrage of dripping wet spirits.
While not well-executed, there is plenty to commend the paranormal pool flick on trying to create. Strong cinematography allows for the depths of the pool to come to life in creepy and mysterious ways. What is initially ruined by silly computer-generated ghost faces is elevated by the cruel loneliness of its depths. The horror in Night Swim isn’t in its phantoms but in the emptiness of dark water. A particularly well-executed day-time sequence also showcases the talent behind the camera, as a playful game of Horse turns into something far deadlier. It doesn’t save it from the convoluted setup, but it does make for a few fun moments.
“I never expected a movie about a haunted pool to have so much to do with baseball” is a common sentiment seen shared about this movie, and in a way it is hard to disagree. Night Swim has a cool premise underneath the glossy surface of its pseudo-menacing property value add. Its failed execution and jumbled ideas obscure the vision from truly reaching its nightmarish potential. Unconvincing performances, flat scares, and a puzzling string of plot devices strung together to make avoiding the pool impossible make Night Swim one difficult to indulge. Hardly the worst horror film ever, or even the worst Blumhouse title, Night Swim will make waves with those willing to engage in silly supernatural jump scares.
Overall Score? 5/10
