Has there ever been a more magical string of words than: “Coming soon: A movie about a bloodthirsty swimming pool from the guys who brought you Saw and M3GAN”? Has any other film in recent history been brimming with that much unbridled potential? Indeed, Night Swim has a premise so hilariously ridiculous that it’s almost too good to be true. Well, actually, not almost. As it turns out, it all is a little too good to be true.
Directed by Bryce McGuire in his feature directorial debut, Night Swim follows Ray Waller (Wyatt Russell), an ex-pro baseball player forced to give up his prosperous career after an MS diagnosis. In the hopes that it will help him recover, Ray moves with his wife Eve (Kerry Condon) and kids, Izzy (Amélie Heoferle) and Elliot (Gavin Warren), to a quiet suburban town. Their new house has it all: Space, a good neighborhood and—you guessed it—a pool!
It isn’t long after the Waller family moves in that spooky stuff starts to happen in said pool. The voice of a small child coming from the drain, for example. A mysterious scabby figure lurking underneath the surface. Of course, this isn’t enough to prompt the family to—I don’t know—just not get in the water.
But who am I to suggest that characters in a horror movie do the smart thing?
The issue with Night Swim isn’t that it’s ridiculous, it’s that it doesn’t understand quite how ridiculous it is. With the exception of Ray, the characters play it completely straight, failing to remark on the absurdity of their situation as if a haunted pool is the same thing as a haunted house. From the done-to-death sentimental mom-and-daughter storyline to cheesy and dated special effects (are we really still doing clouds of black smoke to represent an evil force?), there isn’t much that sets Night Swim apart from any other cookie-cutter, trope-filled horror movie.
Oh, and the baseball storyline doesn’t help. Not only does Night Swim potentially have more baseball in it than Moneyball, but Ray can’t seem to go more than a minute without making a baseball-related comment. Maybe baseball players only speak in baseball lingo?
But despite McGuire’s wooden bat of a script, Russell does a good job with Ray, who is easily the most interesting character in the film. Ray is torn between wanting to be a good dad and mourning the loss of being a hotshot. Russell carefully traverses that tricky tightrope, displaying his grief and internal struggle in the subtle crease of his eyebrow as he stares longingly at a baseball. (Yes, that’s a real scene in the movie Night Swim.)
But Russell isn’t just great at quietly stewing in his existential crisis. He also leans—or at least tries to lean—into the absurdity of Night Swim’s premise. Particularly in the third act of the film, Ray blossoms into full-fledged comic relief while also being totally creepy. I’m sure I’m not alone when I say I hope that more horror films are in Russell’s future.
Sadly, Condon’s character is much less fleshed out. An earnest and supportive wife, Eve more or less cancels out the edge that Ray brings to Night Swim. With every utterance of line like “We’re not alone if we stick together as a family,” all her character does is remind us that this is a by-the-books horror film afraid of taking risks.
And on that note, perhaps the most tragic sin that Night Swim commits is that it just isn’t scary. With all of the baseball scenes, the film hardly has time for actual horror. As a result, there are only a handful of horor-centric scenes, and those scenes are pretty much just the same jumpscare over and over, with screeching musical accompaniment reminding us that we should be scared.
What Night Swim leaves us with, then, is a movie with a seriously fun premise that fails to deliver. This of course isn’t an uncommon phenomenon when it comes to horror films, but one would expect a little more from producers James Wan and Jason Blum. Hopefully next time these horror icons will dive a little deeper.
Director: Bryce McGuire
Writer: Bryce McGuire
Stars: Wyatt Russell, Kerry Condon, Amélie Hoeferle, Gavin Warren
Release Date: January 5, 2024
Aurora Amidon is a film journalist and passionate defender of Hostel: Part II. Follow her on Twitter for her latest questionable culture takes.