Early last year, Jason Blum‘s Blumhouse and James Wan‘s Atomic Monster joined forces to cook up the clever killer doll horror movie M3GAN, a box office hit, and just this week announced their official merger to become the preeminent horror producer bringing together the brains behind some of the most successful films in the genre of the 21st century.
On the heels of the merger confirmation comes Night Swim. Unfortunately, this one is waterlogged, only proving that making a credible killer pool movie is not as easy as playing with dolls.
Based loosely on Rod Blackhurst and Bryce McGuire’s 2014 four-minute short about a woman who disappears into her movie after a spooky encounter in the backyard, that pair are now credited with the story for this feature adaptation, with a screenplay by McGuire who also directs. As it turns out four minutes was the right length for the idea, which borrows a lot from Jaws and Poltergeist, Wan’s Conjuring universe and Blum’s recent Exorcist reboot. Although there are a couple of jump-out-of-your-seat moments here, there was also a good deal of unintentional laughter at the press preview Wednesday night. The biggest guffaw comes at the hour point when Eve, the mother in the family, blurts out, “There’s something wrong with this pool!” That goes for the film as well.
Wyatt Russell plays Ray Waller, a former major league baseball player now in early retirement due to an MS-like degenerative illness that has him sidelined. With his wife Eve (Kerry Condon) and growing kids Izzy (Amelie Hoeferle) and Elliot (Gavin Warren), the family is now ready to settle down after moving around a lot due to dad’s career. They turn up in a nice American town and find the perfect house that even has a pool in the backyard, albeit one that appears not to have been used in years.
In fact it hasn’t, we learn, which will be explained later when the film fills us in on the happenings during the pre-opening credit sequence, set in 1992, when a young girl named Rebecca finds herself eerily sucked into the inner sanctum of the otherwise ordinary-seeming pool during a night swim to retrieve a toy. Cut to current times and the emergence of the Wallers as the latest homeowners. They should have checked the past history of the house because just about every tenant went mysteriously missing over the decades. Could the pool be a serial killer?
At any rate, Ray is thrilled with having a pool as he believes it will be great physical therapy, as well as good for the kids, especially Izzy, who is aiming to join the school swim team. His hunch is right as a doctor’s follow-up visit indicates his illness is in remission after a few splashes.
This is one of those movies, though, where really egregious stuff happens to the characters while swimming. Dad gets an early whiff of it when his hand is grossly bloodied while fixing up the pool to bring it back to shape. The family cat becomes an early victim of the haunted water with only his collar still floating. Elliot has an encounter with a mystery voice and ghostly presence beckoning him from inside the drain flap, one who might be…well you know. Izzy uses the pool as a forbidden date with a boy she likes while her parents are out for the night, but a game of Marco Polo between them gets freaky when, submerged underwater, she encounters a thing that looks like a cross between the Creature from the Black Lagoon and Uncle Fester. Of course, all these concerns are basically brushed off by mom and dad, who decide to invite the entire neighborhood for a getting-to-know-you pool party. It is then that all hell breaks loose.
Night Swim requires that all requirements for logic or semblance of three-dimensional human beings be left at the popcorn counter. Russell basically sleepwalks through his role until CGI trickery takes over his body. Condon, coming off an Oscar nomination for her splendid work last year in The Banshees of Inisherin, simply can’t find a way out of the stereotyped increasingly concerned mom role she is stuck with. Hoeferle and Warren are given some ludicrous lines but they do fine with what they have to work with. Creepiest of all, and the most deliciously campy turn is delivered by veteran actress Jodi Long in a single scene with Condon who visits her to find out what this past resident knows about the pool. Could the answer be in the water itself?
The special visual effects are nothing to write home about, and the cinematography both above and below the surface is on the drab side. Ironically, the camera work on the original 2014 short was sharper.
Wan, after Aquaman, its current underwhelming sequel and now this Aquamess seems a bit too obsessed with the mysteries of the deep. Hopefully he and Blum can help conjure some better otherworldly tales in their new merging of minds. They certainly have the filmography to prove they can do it.
On the way out as the credits were ending, a guy I passed yelled, “bring on the sequel!” I replied, “How about a killer refrigerator movie?” He seemed to like the idea. Your move, Blumhouse/Atomic Monster.
Title: Night Swim
Distributor: Universal Pictures
Release date: January 5, 2024
Director: Bryce McGuire
Screenwriter: Bryce McGuire ; Story By Rod Blackhurt and McGuire
Cast: Wyatt Russell, Kerry Condon, Amelie Hoeferle, Gavin Warren, Jodi Long, Nancy Lenehan, Eddie Martinez, Elijah Roberts, Rahnuma Panthaky
Rating: PG-13
Running time: 1 hr 38 min