Night Swim (2024)
I try not to read reviews before seeing films I write about because there’s always the risk of parroting what’s already been said, but sometimes I can’t resist taking a teeny peek, especially if it’s a horror movie.
And…Night Swim hasn’t gotten the greatest reviews so far. Jeremy Jahns called it “boring” and Alec Toombs of Film Yap nicknamed it “Pooltergeist.” It currently has a twenty-five percent critics’ score and a forty-three percent audience score on Rotten Tomatoes.
None of this boded well. I wish I hadn’t looked.
Although, not looking wouldn’t have made Night Swim any scarier. While the concept of sinister forces lurking in a swimming pool is inherently frightening, especially to those of us who maybe don’t swim very well, by the end of the movie I felt like my dad’s childhood pet, Gretel, a Siamese cat who initially freaked out when Dad set her down in my aunt’s plastic kiddie pool, only to find that the pool had no water.
Dad and Gretel had an interesting relationship, but I digress.
Night Swim was originally based on a 2014 short film. It focuses on the Waller family, who are trying to start a new life after dad Ray has to leave his baseball career behind due to multiple sclerosis. Mom Eve is looking forward to putting down roots and working at the local school. The kids, Izzy and Elliot look forward to making friends. Minus the stress of Ray’s condition, all seems bright, cheerful and hopeful.
The family moves into a house with a swimming pool in the backyard because Ray’s been told water therapy might help him, and it does. A little too much. Ray can suddenly work out like nobody’s business and hit baseballs so hard that they fall apart. The doctor is amazed at Ray’s rapid recovery.
However, the pool has a dirty, dark secret. People have mysteriously died in it over the years, and when the Wallers go swimming they’re met by evil spectres who attempt to pull them to depths unknown, and the murderous threat doesn’t confine itself to the pool, either.
What’s good about Night Swim? The running time is an economical hour and thirty-eight minutes. It’s got some great visuals. It’s got a great cast.
However, all of this is wasted by a clumsy script with numerous narrative problems, underwritten characters and lame attempts at jump scares.
How lame are we talking about? Very lame. A pool technician slipping on a diving board is framed as a jump scare. Ray getting a nasty puncture wound when trying to clean the pool filter is framed as a jump scare. Ray falling in the pool is framed as a jump scare. When Elliot hears a little girl named Rebecca supposedly talking to him from one of the skimmers, some of her hair comes out and grabs him.
Oh, wait. That last one was sort of scary. Mostly weird, though.
Night Swim is unfailingly illogical in both its execution and the choices made by the characters. Why, for instance, after scary things happened in the pool, would the Wallers choose to host a pool party with dozens of strangers? Why didn’t the realtor tell the Wallers before they bought the house that the pool was cursed? I’m sorry, but “You all seemed so happy,” is not a valid reason.
Oh, and I lost count of how many times the characters stood on the side of the pool and reached for objects floating just out of their grasp. Everyone does it, they fall in or get scared out of their wits, but then they go back and do it all again. No one learns their lesson. No one. Dumbness like this happens all over the movie.
The movie’s worst misstep, though, is that it goes too far into its runtime for the characters to make any investigation into what’s happening or do much of anything to stop the madness, or at least do something we don’t expect. Until the third act, everyone mostly keeps swimming and hoping they’re seeing things when the pool gets creepy.
Does anyone else think the filmmakers were trying too hard? I sure do. Night Swim could have been a so-bad-it’s-good kind of romp, but it’s too boring and rote for that. Bummer. At least it’s only January.
Night Swim is currently in theaters. Rated PG-13.
My grade: D
Principal Cast: Wyatt Russell, Kerry Condon, Nancy Lenehan, Amelie Hoeferle, Gavin Warren, Jodi Long, Eddie Martinez, Elijah J. Roberts, Rahnuma Panthaky, Ben Cinclair, Ellie Araiza.
Directed by Bryce McGuire.
Written by Bryce McGuire and Rod Blackhurst.