Night Swim (2024)

DIRECTED BY

Bryce McGuire

STARRING

Wyatt Russell - Ray Waller

Kerry Condon - Eve Waller

Amelie Hoefele - Izzy Waller

Gavin Warren - Elliot Waller

Jodi Long - Lucy Summers

Nancy Lenehan - Kay

Genre - Horror/Supernatural

Running Time - 98 Minutes

PLOT

Forced into early retirement by a degenerative illness, 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

The last couple of years started off pretty strong, with 2022’s SCREAM and 2023’s M3GAN pretty much setting the horror genre on a good pace for the rest of those respective years. While the trailers for Blumhouse’s NIGHT SWIM didn’t exactly excite me in any sort of way, I was hoping for a decent enough time that would give me some hope for some killer horror movies for 2024.

It took me a while to pin down my thoughts for NIGHT SWIM because I honestly don’t have anything to really discuss about this bland film that left me more underwhelmed than I was expecting it to. Going in, I was expecting something similar to 1977’s DEATH BED: THE BED THAT EATS. The only difference is that it would be a swimming pool eating and/or killing people in a fun B-movie way. I wasn’t expecting a lamer version of THE AMITYVILLE HORROR with less murder, unearned insanity and a resolution that had people in my theater laughing their heads off. 

To get the good stuff out of the way, I thought the film looked nice with some cool shots here and there. The actors were giving more than what the screenplay deserved honestly, Wyatt Russell and Kerry Condon, in particular, deserve better material but are sympathetic as parents who are struggling for different reasons. The two younger actors (Amelie Hoefele and Gavin Warren) are likable as well. And I think the concept of a supernatural pool that grants one’s desires while demanding a violent sacrifice is super interesting.

However, the execution is weak and it creates a pretty dull film that contains elements of other horror movies that have executed these elements way better. There’s an investigation of this supernatural pool that doesn’t explore things enough, considering all the sacrifices that inhabit the pool. I guess you need a reason for a prequel or sequels since everything has to be a franchise/universe. The father of the family gets possessed like in THE AMITYVILLE HORROR, but it happens way too late into the film and not much is done with it until the very end. The change is all surface level and we don’t really get much depth, which NIGHT SWIM seriously lacks. And the worst part? It’s not scary or suspenseful at all. In fact, I chuckled when I saw the first CGI figure that appears in the pool to scare one of the characters. I doubt that’s the reaction the filmmakers wanted.

THE FINAL HOWL

NIGHT SWIM has a great idea that could have been explored in many interesting ways, but just decides to play it safe and give audiences something they’ve already seen countless of times. I’m sure it worked as a short film and this could have been pretty cool as a miniseries on Peacock to flesh out characters and ideas. But it seriously fell flat for me and I will probably never watch this again. Not worth dipping your feet into, in my opinion.

SCORE

1.5 Howls Outta 4

(4 out of 10)