Swim, Swim, Sink
First-timer Bryce mcGuire shows off a visual flair but can’t quite score a perfect ‘10’.
Night Swim
Director: Bryce McGuire • Writer: Bryce McGuire
Starring: Wyatt Russell, Kerry Condon, Amélie Hoeferle, Gavin Warren, Nancy Lenehan, Jodi Long, Eddie Martinez
USA • 1hr 38mins
Opens Hong Kong January 4 • IIB
Grade: B-
Methinks there was a really good short film in Night Swim, writer-director Bryce McGuire’s first feature, based on… checks notes… McGuire’s short fillm of the same name. The short version: A family movies into a house with a haunted swimming pool that also seems to be healing the patriarch of a degenerative illness, thus keeping his pro sport comeback dreams alive. In adapting it to feature length, the eerie story may have lost some of the inherent leanness that makes creepy spaces so much fun for horror hounds. But, and a huge but here, I haven’t seen the short (yet) so I’m just guessing.
Night Swim is the latest low budget shocker from Blumhouse Productions (The Purge and Insidious series, Get Out, The Black Phone) and Atomic Monster (The Conjuring Universe, Mortal Kombat, Malignant and M3GAN), and that’s notable seeing as Blumhouse and Monster recently took their relationship to the next level. They’re not living together anymore. They got married. In the last quarter century (!) Blumhouse has earned its films US$2.5 billion, which pales in comparison to the MCU’s US$17 billion in receipts – but you can be damn sure Blumhouse’s ROI is much, much, much better. Night Swim is going to reap the benefits of BH’s keep it cheap (rarely over US$15 million), shoot fast (this was reportedly 34 days) and roll the dice on creatives philosophy. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. Night Swim mostly works for two acts before sprinting to finish and almost drowning as a result.
Just stay out
The story sets up quite effieciently, with McGuire exploitng a likeable cast to set up maximum stakes and letting the baked-in creepiness of empty swimming pools speak for itself. The Waller family is made up of pro baseballer dad Ray (Wyatt Russell, who can’t be in enough), school administrator mom Eve (Kerry Condon, ditto), and their refreshingly normal, not-at-all-irritating kids, Izzy and Elliot (Amélie Hoeferle and Gavin Warren). The opening sequences sketch out a backstory about an MS diagnosis that’s cut Ray’s glorious career with the Milwakee Brewers (hahahahaha) short, constant moving around, and an insecure Elliot. It’s in the little interactions that Night Swim works best. It’s hard not to like this family. They’re supportive, patient, goofy, down to earth. Izzy teases her little brother like any 16-ish girl would, but she’s not a dick about it, and when Eve asks Izzy to have her back, she does. If Ray has trouble walking, everyone helps him around, and he never brushes them off with a brusk “I’m fine!” I like the Wallers.
After settling into their new home, they start taking full advantage of the swimming pool, which happens to be filled with natural spring water that’s reversing Ray’s MS symptoms. There’s also a sinister entity in the water, and before long it starts to fuck with the Wallers. One of the issues with Night Swim’s larger success is its dedication to horror convention and unwillingness to just let things be. It’s like Manhole. A dude’s stuck in a hole in Tokyo. Go. Why all these bells and whistles? Here, a family has a haunted pool. Go.
Okay, aside from the obvious solutions to the Wallers’ problem – stay out the damn pool – McGuire and cinematographer Charlie Sarroff (Smile) do a great job of making taking a dip a tense affair. The pool scenes are all refracted light, rippled images and distorted sound, and when the entities finally show up it’s from a spooky-serene otherworldly netherspace; oh, baby, are there are a ton of blue filters in Night Swim, but they work. And we care about the Wallers because we like them, largely down to Russell stepping into the Everyman, but really Cool Everyman breach his dad Kurt is increasingly leaving, and Condon effortlessly balancing maternal with steely action hero. McGuire taps the vein of It (one scene in particular isn’t even trying to hide the influence) and Poltergeist, and does so fairly effectively until some boneheaded third act storytelling decisions undo a great deal of the preceding goodwill and character building. This is exactly the type of brisk, diverting chiller we expect at this time of year, and horror buffs should be pleased with the clever visual tricks that mask the film’s modest budget and announce McGuire as one to watch. But take it from your ledger Blumhouse: sometimes less is more. — DEK