Blumhouse delivered a strong slate of horror in 2023 with box office breakouts like M3GAN and Five Nights at Freddy’s as well as notable additions to established franchises like Insidious: The Red Door and The Exorcist: Believer. Now, the studio kicks off their 2024 with writer/director Bryce McGuire’s feature directorial debut – Night Swim.
The film follows former professional baseball player Ray Waller (Wyatt Russell) and his family as they move into a new home. Although the family deals with the reality of Ray’s baseball career ending due to a recent MS diagnosis, there’s one thing that makes this transition a little easier – the large pool in their backyard. At first, this new luxury acts as an alleviating activity for Ray during his therapy and for the minds of his family. However, there’s something sinister that lies just below the surface. Along with a horrifying hidden history, this pool has an evil entity within it that makes life for Ray’s family absolute hell. Now, Ray’s family must uncover the truth about this terrifying force before it manipulates Ray to make a devastating choice.
Ironically, Night Swim doesn’t initially hook viewers through its horrors. Rather, it utilizes the charm and likability of its cast and characters to make a solid first impression. The depiction of Ray’s struggles with MS and his life out of the spotlight is surprisingly strong and grounded. It acts as a good emotional thread for viewers to latch onto, and the sense of support that comes from his family – mainly his wife Eve (Kerry Condon) – is immediately touching. The chemistry between Russell and Condon is great as they balance good-hearted vibes that result in fun and compassionate interactions. These tender aspects of the film’s central family create this irresistible appeal that turns what could’ve been a stock-standard family dynamic into something more meaningful.
The performances and McGuire’s direction lean into the more light-hearted elements of these characters well and there’s even some good humor that comes through. There are some funny one-liners and personalities thrown in and the film is never afraid to acknowledge its silliness. Audiences will be thoroughly entertained by how Marco Polo is used for scare set-ups and the film definitely likes to have fun even in its more horror-driven moments. What audiences will love about Night Swim is that it displays a similar sense of unabashed amusement and goofiness that M3GAN did – meaning that it’s pure fun for general moviegoers and genre fans alike.
Sadly, while there are the good times in Night Swim, the film heavily lacks in the scare department. McGuire undoubtedly shows prowess in crafting these suspenseful lead-ups that leave audiences in high anticipation of what horrors are just around the corner. The underwater shots in Night Swim are distinctly pulse-pounding and help make the experience stand out in the genre well. There’s one sequence of this pool becoming bottomless that’s honestly stunning and leaves viewers holding their breath in uneasiness.
Unfortunately, McGuire can’t make up for what’s clearly missing with Night Swim. It’s a horror film that’s too tame for its own good and constantly lacks memorable jolts or monsters that audiences can leave talking about. Most of the ghost designs aren’t all that special and many scenes with a lot of scare potential are ruined by terrible effects and/or an absence of creativity. There are stereotypical research scenes and story beats that have been done to death in horror and make this film super generic. The film’s horror never pushes beyond its safe PG-13 boundaries, and it is what makes the experience come off immensely watered-down, forgettable, and uninspired.
Even worse, as the more likable elements of Ray and his family eventually start to fade once the film shifts into horror, the characters lose their appeal. Most of the time, they’re just walking into death traps and become frustrating to watch in clearly bad situations. However, the biggest disappointment of Night Swim is its bare-bones mythology. The ambiguity surrounding the growing supernatural presence around the pool can create a good mystery at first. But the film takes way too long to give answers and struggles to make its reveals worthwhile. Aside from an interesting twist that connects to and expands on the film’s opening, the film establishes this weird and confusing backstory for the paranormal parts of the pool. It’s not detailed enough for viewers to really have a firm grip on it and essentially acts as a passable response to a lingering question. The mythos of Night Swim isn’t remotely satisfying nor intriguing enough to make viewers more interested in this world.
Night Swim has its fun moments and does enough right to get Blumhouse off to a decent start in 2024, but it’s far from being a noteworthy horror flick. It’s bloodless and overly mild in its scares while struggling to maintain any sort of interest in the characters or what’s happening in the film.
