Night Swim (2024) Horror Movie Review

Now, they've announced their latest project, Night Swim. Unfortunately, it seems to be a flop. This just goes to show that making a believable killer pool movie is trickier than making one with dolls.

Horror Movie Review

This movie is loosely based on a short film from 2014 about a woman who vanishes into her own movie after a creepy incident in her backyard. The creators, Rod Blackhurst and Bryce McGuire, are credited with the story, and McGuire also directed and wrote the screenplay. The short film was only four minutes long, and it seems that was the right length for the idea.

The best movie draws inspiration from various sources like "Jaws," "Poltergeist," James Wan's Conjuring Universe, and Blum's recent Exorcist reboot. Despite a few moments that might make you jump, the press preview on Wednesday night had some unintentional laughter. The most notable one happened around the one-hour mark when Eve, the mom in the family, exclaims, "There’s something wrong with this pool!" That seems to sum up the overall feeling about the film.

The main character, Ray Waller, played by Wyatt Russell, is a former baseball player dealing with a degenerative illness. He, along with his wife Eve and their kids, is settling down in a new town with a seemingly perfect house that comes with a neglected pool in the backyard.

The pool in this movie has a spooky history, revealed through a flashback to 1992. Back then, a girl named Rebecca got mysteriously sucked into the pool during a night swim. Now, fast forward to today, the Waller family moves in without knowing that the house has a dark past. Turns out, almost every previous tenant went missing. Is the pool some kind of serial troublemaker?

Ray, the dad, is excited about the pool, thinking it's great for his health and the kids. His hunch seems right when a doctor's visit shows his illness is getting better after a few splashes.

But here's the twist: Weird stuff starts happening while they're in the pool. Dad's hand gets all bloody fixing it up, the family cat becomes a victim, and the kids have spooky encounters. Even when Izzy uses the pool for a secret date, things get creepy with underwater surprises.

Despite all these odd happenings, Mom and Dad decide to throw a pool party for the whole neighborhood. That's when things go haywire.

"Night Swim" tosses logic out the window, and the main actors struggle in their roles. Wyatt Russell seems disengaged until computer-generated effects take over. Kerry Condon, fresh off an Oscar nomination, is stuck in a stereotypical concerned mom role. Amelie Hoeferle and Gavin Warren manage with absurd lines, while Jodi Long steals the show in a campy scene with Condon, exploring the pool's mysterious history.

The visual effects and cinematography are lackluster, a far cry from the sharper work in the original 2014 short. Director James Wan, post-"Aquaman" and its lackluster sequel, appears overly fascinated with deep mysteries. Let's hope the merger with Blum can conjure better otherworldly tales, given their impressive filmography.

Exiting the theater, someone shouted for a sequel, but I suggested a killer refrigerator movie. Who knows? Blumhouse/Atomic Monster might consider it for their next move.

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