Bryce McGuire’s horror film Night Swim turned out to be my first 2024 in the cinema. It’s not unusual for a horror to be the first film of a year (it happened to many of us last year with M3GAN) but did Night Swim live up to the task of getting me hyped for the year? Or was this Blumhouse production just another landfill horror?
Plot
The film begins with one of the only “swim” scenes that actually happen at night – a small girl sees her sick brother’s favourite toy floating in the family’s backyard pool and goes out to get it. Inevitably, she falls in and spooky stuff happens.
Flash forward and the Waller family are looking for a new house. Ray, the dad (Wyatt Russell) is a former baseball player who has developed MS and the family want to set down some roots to help him recover. Surprise, surprise, the same house from the spooky start is on the market! So the Wallers move in and start using the pool. Ray uses it for water therapy, the teenage girl, Izzy (Amélie Hoeferle) joins the swim team, the young son Elliot (Gavin Warren) swims with the family or his dad and the mum, Eve (Kerry Condon) does some laps.
Ok so set up is done, now the pool starts to get spooky. Most of the family experience some weirdness, feeling like the pool is against them. Ray starts to act weird, his MS is magically clearing up and his strength is coming back, while the others are getting spooked out. Elliot sees an apparition of the girl from the start and Izzy has a near-drowning incident (from the trailer). After a pool party that goes tits-up, Eve looks for answers, searching for the small girl who drowned and what actually happened to her. Ensue horror show-down, family v pool.
My Review
Let’s talk about some things I liked. There were some small instances of foreshadowing and cleverness. For example, using coins to throw into the pool while the kids practice swimming, which mimics the idea of “making a wish” – which is what the pool is granting here, kind of. I liked the opening scene with the small girl who drowns (playing into, perhaps, the “dead wet girls” of J-Horror); I also liked some of the underwater shots – it’s creepy not knowing what’s going on above the surface and the blue created eeriness. There were also some really funny lines – big shout out to Nancy Lenehan, who played the real-estate agent – she delivered some crackers. [Side note: I recognised the actress and when I looked it up I realised I recognised her from ONE episode of Buffy. I don’t know what that says about me.] The absolute best line, however, was from Wyatt Russell who delivered it hilariously, with a great zoom in on his face he says to his doctor, with a smile ‘we have a pool’. I also liked (no spoilers) the ending.
Night Swim, however, was not scary. Apart from the odd spooky moment and the classic horror tropes (family pet goes missing, mum shuts the fridge and someone is standing there, lights flicker, etc) there wasn’t anything to shout about in terms of actual horror. Sure, there was a possessed pool and it pulled people in and stuff, but the overall horror didn’t extend further than that. I would have liked the pool to (for example) interact with other bodies of water, like the kitchen sink or the shower. Or, more dead wet people. Either in or by the pool.
There was also very little character development. Each family member had one thing they were into – the dad, baseball, the mum, her job/degree, the daughter, the swim team and the kid, being shy. And also baseball too. But these things weren’t expanded on. We don’t see the daughter actually AT a swim meet or even doing that much practice. We don’t see the kid at school, only during one baseball practice and we see the mum mainly doing mum things (though actually, of them all, she had the most to do). The dad was arguably the main focus here, but he was such a one-dimensional character that it was a drag.
One of the saving graces of the film was that I saw it at 10:30am on a Saturday morning with two other horror fans. It was an enjoyable way to start a weekend and would recommend it as some light entertainment – don’t expect loads.
2.5 stars, if you’re into that.
That Horror Chick 