Written and directed by Bryce McGuire, based off his 2014 short of the same name, Night Swim follows a family who moves into a new home. Only for some members finding themselves experiencing some strange, and in some cases deadly, supernatural forces that appear to be connected with the giant pool that came with the house. The family consists of Ray Waller (Wyatt Russell), his wife Eve (Kerry Condon), and their two children Izzy (Amélie Hoeferle) and Elliot (Gavin Warren. On top of all that, Ray has been dealing with chronic pain following an injury that has put an early end to his baseball career.
Not to spoil it all right away, but the film is not especially good, nor is is all that bad. It’s yet another middling January horror film that might be able to provide some creeps as you’re watching it, but overall, there’s nothing all that special about this film, especially when compared to some of the other films that have released this time of year like the recent M3GAN. It’s about as basic as one of these movies can go, which doesn’t inherently have to mean something terrible, but there isn’t a lot of inspiration beyond what they see in the surface.
It is based on a short film, and frankly, it maybe should have stayed that way. It is very obvious where the film decides to expand, and where it doesn’t. It’s not an especially long film, but it does devote time to avenues that don’t really pay off. Chunks of the film are devoted to the history of the pool, or rather the area of land that the pool currently sits on. Some of the history is interesting, but it doesn’t really go anywhere. It just gets abandoned as soon we get close to exploring that aspect of the material.
There’s also not much there under the surface either. If I had to pull something out of my butt, I’d maybe bring up the idea of exploring the downfall of the nuclear family as a concept, or the legacy of stolen land, and but these would feel like a big stretch. There just aren’t many interesting ideas at play, and whenever the film gets close to something nuanced and interesting, it pulls back, and go through the same formula. It also doesn’t quite clarify the rules of how the supernatural force is operating because sometimes it allows people to live fairly easily while others can’t fathom what they’re seeing, so they froze up.
The performances are solid enough. Wyatt Russell and Kerry Condon are both hilariously overqualified for such a disposable movie. The actors playing their children are able to remain consistent and authentic in their sibling dynamic. There’s also some strong sound design here, and occasionally the film will put together an evocative image, but nothing that adds up to something that is really fulfilling and engrossing.
I don’t have much to say about Night Swim. It’s par for the course when it comes to these kinds of January horror movies. And it’s a bummer considering producer James Wan has a fairly good track record when it comes to him producing films directed by up-and-comers. I think filmmaker Bryce McGuire does have some chops in him to make something really fun and cool, but today is not that day. Night Swim might be enough just to pass the time, but it really seemed like whenever it was getting ready to show some interest in anything outside of the immediate needs of you and your moots, even on a subtextual level, it mostly just kept to the broad strokes of this formula, and not much else. It also ends on a rather odd note, one that feels strange and at odds with what the More forgettable than anything else, I probably won’t remember a thing after a week.
Night Swim is now out in theaters.