Jay Rohr
Night Swim never gets out of the shallows. Despite a novel concept with promising potential, the film sticks to such conventional territory the story never offers anything new. That might be forgivable if the scares worked. Unfortunately, Night Swim does next to nothing interesting. Ideas are thrown in the pool yet given nothing to keep them afloat and as a result, sink to the bottom.
The story follows the Waller family. Wyatt Russell plays Ray, a former MLB star now struggling with multiple sclerosis. Kerry Condon portrays his wife Eve doing her best to keep the family positive. The Wallers move into a pleasant suburban house with a fabulous pool. However, as the kids and Eve become aware something is haunting the pool, Ray is increasingly drawn to the water as his illness improves.
Night Swim sets up a lot of great thematic notions. Ray’s sickness is not only a strain on the family, but also robbed him of major league stardom. Eve remains heartwarmingly devoted, but she’s at her limit as the sole breadwinner trying to keep her kids from spiraling. The problem, though, is that Night Swim does very little with any of this. Instead, it walks a tired trail of haunted house scares that happen to occur in and around a pool. Squandering the novel setting, Night Swim floats on clichés. Someone swimming by a ghost only the audience notices is no different than similarly walking by spooks in a hall.
There’s also a lot of wasted potential in the cast. Wyatt Russell (Lodge 49) and Kerry Condon (The Banshees of Inisherin) are performers capable of carrying more water than Night Swim offers. Even the Waller kids, played by Amélie Hoeferle and Gavin Warren, could have been given more. The movie wants to be about a family cracking under the strain of a degenerative illness and a loved one inevitably dying, but filmmakers never take the risks they set up. At best, they flinch from crucial moments then settle for exposition dumps which only serve as reminders of lost opportunities.
Some clever camera work occurs a few times. Although none of it ever saves the movie, such cinematic flair shows director Bryce McGuire has some innovative visuals notions. But interesting camera work doesn’t help predictable scares frighten. Many of these clever camera tricks are merely flashy variations on panning back and forth to reveal ghosts that weren’t there before. At best, Night Swim has a solid jump scare or two. Most frights, however, are seen coming a mile a off. Instead of using predictability to misdirect, McGuire stays the course swimming straight for the obvious. What are supposed to be tension building moments become yawn inducing waits for tiresome pay offs.
Night Swim started out as a short film released back around 2014. Genuine kudos to Bryce McGuire for spinning the attention that hooked into a career resulting in this opportunity. However, Night Swim shows that expanding a small great idea into a full-fledged feature length film isn’t simple.
Attempts at meatier themes hint through the movie. However, penning the script, McGuire either didn’t know how to make them narratively compelling through dialogue and events, or mistakenly believed things didn’t need more exploration. Consequently, Night Swim is cluttered by too many instances which don’t feel properly earned. As such, the finished product implies an intriguing rough draft that needed to be better refined. Night Swim wants to be some kind of gothic fairytale about an unassuming pool with a sinister background. And in the hands of someone else, it might have been. Instead, audiences are subjected to the squandering of a clever setting and lazy characterization that wastes a quality cast.
Cinematographer Charlie Sarroff is no stranger to fright flicks. Having worked on films like Relic (2020) and Smile (2022), there’s some solid work incorporating surrounding darkness. Most of the underwater filming is excellent, especially at night. The eerie glow of the water coupled with rippling lights makes characters seem to be drifting through an ethereal realm. Oddly enough, when the story does venture into an abyssal underwater nightmare, all those great visual dynamics are ditched for a muddy darkness that does little except telegraph shocks. When the camera turns towards the empty black, a glowing neon countdown to jump scares would be less obvious. It’s just another sign of how Night Swim settles for the cleverness of a premise then does nothing with it that the filmmakers seem entirely capable of doing.
The visual effects aren’t terrible. At worst, they’re simply dreadfully uninspired. The grey, waterlogged ghosts who pop up now again also lack any personality. That may sound like an odd criticism, but the point is that none really stands out. They all behave the same way, and none have anything distinct enough to be a haunting presence after Night Swim ends.
Night Swim may spook folks who only see one or two horror films a year, but even then, this is starter horror for the squeamish looking to dip a toe. And that’s being generous. Veteran horror hounds in search of something at least entertaining should just keep swimming. They’ll guess the whole plot in the first ten minutes then be bored to tears throughout.
The horror movie about a haunted pool shouldn’t make me want to take a swim. However, this movie did just that. Writer-director Bryce McGuire squanders a lot to do very little. Some clever camera work can’t save floundering frights from going under, and an underinflated script falls to float the heavier notions Night Swim wants to carry. The cast does their best, yet other films have already done better with similar premises—the haunted family, a loved one changing darkly, sinister otherworldly manipulations. Night Swim treads water and goes nowhere.
