After moving into a new home, the Waller family experiences the wrath of a haunted pool. Night Swim follows former baseball star Ray Waller (Wyatt Russell) and his family attempting to navigate their new reality as he attempts to recover from a debilitating disease.
If you’re going into Night Swim expecting a cheesy, poorly developed horror film, then you’ll get exactly what you’re looking for. Simply put: Night Swim is not a good film, but it will certainly appeal to the horror fans that will likely flood the theaters as a result of a somewhat-original film.
There are obvious issues strewn throughout the course of Night Swim, issues that seem like they stem from a lack of material. Not all that long ago Writer-Director Bryce McGuire and Writer Rod Blackhurst sold the rights to their short film of the same name, and it feels as if they were incapable of effectively stretching their film. There is a ton of filler throughout Night Swim, and most of the filler is unimportant, playing almost no role in developing the film. In only an hour and forty minutes, nearly forty minutes of the film feels irrelevant, simply unnecessary.
Furthermore, the dialogue is faulty, never delivering emotion or terror like I believe McGuire and Blackhurst believed that it would. The constant talk of things like the “deep water” or the fact that the water needs a sacrifice comes off more sarcastic than it does dramatic, and characters like Ray, his wife Eve (Kerry Condon), and the others fail to develop appropriately as a result. Night Swim can’t ever find its footing in regard to being a truly horrifying film. Through anticlimactic music, inconsequential jump scares, and a borderline laughable bit of dialogue, Night Swim can’t develop terror.
With that, I actually found myself bored throughout Night Swim, desperately trying to find something to appreciate. I constantly considered getting up and walking out of the theater, and while my thoughts were simply that, thoughts, the fact that I even considered this is a bad thing. However, I believe that fans of the horror genre won’t feel this way. While Night Swim is incredibly derivative of films like It and The Ring, the somewhat-original nature of the film, and the simple fact that it’s a horror film will attract an audience, and more than likely appeal to them.
The one thing that I was able to appreciate about the film was the cinematography, but like most else in Night Swim, the most charming shots were inconsequential. While I enjoyed a handful of artistic and entertaining shots, the fact that they ultimately played no role in the development of the story or the film as a whole rubbed me the wrong way. Again and again I was disappointed at the fact that these shots went nowhere, did nothing, and ultimately had no effect on Night Swim.
The issue, sort of, is that Jason Blum and Blumhouse have sort of monopolized the horror genre, and he and his company–along with the producing James Wan and Atomic Monster–have the freedom to do pretty much whatever they please at this point. With that, I’m afraid that the world will continue to receive more and more films of this nature before we see the mainstream horror genre take a step in the right direction. While they have certainly produced a handful of enjoyable films in the past, Blum and Wan will continue to perpetuate a cycle of mediocre horror films that appeal to a specific audience, but hold little cinematic value. Night Swim is just one of many, and very little about it is appealing.
Directed by Bryce McGuire.
Written by Bryce McGuire & Rod Blackhurst.
Starring Wyatt Russell, Kerry Condon, Amélie Hoeferle, Gavin Warren, Jodi Long, Eddie Martinez, Elijah J. Roberts, etc.
⭐⭐⭐⭐/10 = WORTH THE RISK, BUT YOU’VE BEEN WARNED
