Hollywood horror often attempts to resolve the collective anxiety about the suburbs, that place full of nice-looking houses creaking with ghosts and terrors. Admittedly, suburban life is fundamentally strange, with neighborhoods filled with atomized worlds and natural features converted into individual, highly controlled assets. A forest turns into well-tended bushes. A lake becomes a swimming pool.
Swimming pools are ubiquitous in American suburbs (just take a look out the window when you fly), and the wealth, comfort, and fun they represent can turn a mediocre kid into the most popular kid in school, at least during the summer. hot months. They’re also ubiquitous in horror, from “Gremlins” to that greatest example of suburban anxiety, “Poltergeist.” For the Waller family of “Night Swim,” the pool means freedom, friends and a new lease on life. But swimming pools can also be deadly (accidental drowning is the leading cause of death among young children), so the pleasure has its benefits, a fact the Waller family is about to learn.
Ray Waller (Wyatt Russell) is a former major league baseball player, a true slugger, whose multiple sclerosis has left him out of the game. His wife, Eve (Kerry Condon), is eager to finally settle down and make a lasting home for their two children: the cheerful teenager Izzy (Amélie Hoeferle) and Elliot (Gavin Warren), who struggles more than his sister to fit in with others. children. They find an old house on the outskirts of the Twin Cities, fall in love, buy it, and then start cleaning the sticky, unused pool in the backyard. It becomes an oasis. And for a while, the pool seems to be helping Ray get better.
But this is a horror movie, so the Wallers can’t have nice things and, sadly, neither can we. “Night Swim” is the feature debut of Bryce McGuire, produced by horror experts James Wan and Jason Blum and based on McGuire’s 2014 short film. (A fact too strange to ignore: that short was filmed in the pool at the musician Michelle Branch’s backyard). The first half of the film is remarkably effective, especially if you’ve ever owned a pool, and especially if you’ve swum in it. at night, although many “night swims” take place during the day. Jumps abound, and a scene with Izzy and her crush is especially terrifying.
But at some point everything goes downhill. The inciting concept is so strong (the group, to rephrase the meme, that kills you) that all the additions after a certain point start to seem excessive. The strongest horror concepts are spare and orderly: something is chasing you, something is knocking under the bed. They tap into an anguish that is fundamental and at a visceral level, a level much lower than your head.
The problem with “Night Swim” is that it tries to say too much, which doesn’t completely eliminate the enjoyment, but it can be distracting. It’s partly a film about a primal fear of water, and that’s where it’s most effective. (In the grand tradition of “Jaws,” I anticipate some viewers will be hesitant to dive into it next summer.) But other horror tropes appear here and there: the “Indian cemetery,” the sick child, themes that emerge in an ungainly way. It is a film about the dark side of ambition and the true nature of sacrifice; Also family favoritism, illness and maybe hell? By the end I wasn’t really sure, and the general silliness that emerges in the third act undermines the emotional resonance it’s going for.
McGuire clearly has the chops and imagination for horror, so I’m excited to see what he does next. And for a winter horror release, which is normally a good time to go to the movies, eat popcorn, and get scared, he gets the job done. In fact, pool owners should be glad that it’s a January release. You will have a few months to let the fear go away. Maybe.
Night swimming
Rated PG-13 for horror and children in danger. Duration: 1 hour 56 minutes. On cinemas.
