Night Swim – Review

Cert – 15, Run-time – 1 hour 38 minutes, Director – Bryce McGuire

After moving in to a home where they hope to finally lay down roots a family are attacked by evil forces residing in the swimming pool which initially seems to perform wonders for them.

Ray and Eve Waller (Wyatt Russell, Kerry Condon) stand in front of the half-covered swimming pool in the back garden of the home their viewing. Littered with leaves it feels as if it’s been abandoned for years, it’s mentioned that the previous owners had the home for around thirty years. He says how he always wanted a pool, she mentions how she used to be scared of pools, we know exactly where this is all going.

The Waller’s; with their two children, teenager Izzy (Amélie Hoeferle) and younger Elliot (Gavin Waller), quickly move in with equal rush to set up the pool. It seems to work miracles for bringing the family together, and especially in removing almost all symptoms of MS from ‘on-a-break’ baseball star Ray. However, when alone in the pool at night each member of the family begins to encounter voices and ghostly figures in the deep end – sometimes resembling familiar faces and other times looking like hair and moss-covered figures which slightly change looks depending on the shot, at one point looking like a lumpy, improperly rendered Shrek.

As the ghostly goings on become more frequent and possessions take place Night Swim poses itself as a damp set of horror clichés. There’s little awareness as to how an idea like this could have a sense of wry humour, the PG-13 rating is treated deadly seriously although with the attitude of something initially intended as an R until the studio requested a lower rating. This is a film about a haunted swimming pool and it doesn’t seem to know it. Instead we’re dealt lengthy family dramas, largely concerning Russell’s recuperation as he believes he could beat the odds and get back to the big time – something which the third act makes a bigger deal of than the rest of the film has made it seem – amongst lacklustre scare attempts, all riddled with a wave of cliché.

Based on writer-director Bryce McGuire’s short film of the same name (made alongside Rod Blackhurst), there’s little development throughout Night Swim’s events as the gaps between something actually happening themselves feel drawn out. As a whole the film feels bland and lacking in anything to hold on to due to the overfamiliar and tired details which largely populate it. Even the moments of horror as the night-time attacks occur are filled with overused details. The music stops, the lights flicker before shutting off, a sinister figure appears briefly for a few frames before someone looks away to reveal it’s no longer there, the boredom sinks further in and the film simply tumbles downwards.

Riddled with scare-lacking clichés, Night Swim has little to engage with in its few bland developments, quickly sinking with barely a splash.