BY JACK RANSOM JANUARY 15, 2024
I truly think that Blumhouse has now sunk to its lowest depths with its latest generic horror jump scare-fest to arrive on the conveyor belt of content (I can’t believe how quickly it took for The Exorcist: Believer to lose the top spot!). Stretching a less than 4 minute scenario short into a near 100 minute feature was always a worrying prospect and despite inklings of a potentially ‘out there’ explanation for this utterly goofy premise. Kerry Condon still gives her all despite the absolute guff that is the screenplay, those worries rung true.
SYNOPSIS
Adapted from the 2014 short film of the same name. Night Swim sees former baseball player Ray Waller moves into a new house with his wife and two children. He hopes that the backyard swimming pool will be fun for the kids and provide physical therapy for himself. However, a dark secret from the home's past soon unleashes a malevolent force that drags the family into the depths of inescapable terror.
REVIEW
What Night Swim essentially boils down to is every single supernatural/generic PG-13 wide audience encompassing “horror” that has unfortunately encompassed the genre for well over a decade now… except instead of a house, it’s a swimming pool. Let’s start the checklist shall we: family moves into a new home for a fresh start, younger sibling finds it hard to fit in and is the first to believe that something is wrong with their new home, estate agent who doesn’t tell the family about the death on the property that’s kept it at such a low price, the father begins to crack, obligatory research sequence which leads to a last remaining relative of the tragedy that befell the previous owners, who in turn helps advise how the evil can be stopped. It’s just all so tired and dull in its plotting and presentation.
The only substantial crumbs of entertainment was just how stupid and unintentionally funny some of the dialogue is, especially as the father character becomes increasingly more Jack Torrance due to the pool and just becomes obsessed with mentioning it, and the myriad of excuses and scenarios the film has to construct to justify people getting into the damn thing. Oh sorry yes, the big question… is it scary? Of course not, pathetically inept jump scares, laughable attempts at tension and host of shots and sequences ripped off from everything from It, Get Out, The Amityville Horror, The Shining… you get the picture.
Night Swim sinks like a stone in terms of scares and enjoyment (outside of ridiculing its ineptitude) and wastes what could have been a self aware, intentionally silly gimmick. Instead, offering an eye-rolling amount of derivative traits and tropes that I am just so sick of in this genre. I really need to stop going out of my way for these films.
STAR RATING
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