First Night Swim Trailer Reveals the Most Ludicrous Horror Premise in Recent Memory

Even by the standards of horror movies with January release dates, it’s been a good while since we’ve seen something quite so gleefully and unabashedly stupid as Night Swim appears to be. The Blumhouse Productions and Atomic Monster co-production–with James Wan and Jason Blum attaching their names as producers–will be getting a Jan. 5, 2024 wide release from Universal Pictures … with the premise of “a haunted swimming pool.” That’s not us trying to make this sound dumber than it really is via oversimplification: The official synopsis reads “An unknown supernatural presence haunts a backyard swimming pool.” See for yourself below, in the first trailer released today.

If you thought “that sounds more like a short film premise,” then you are truly and entirely correct–the film is based on the 2014 short film Night Swim by Bryce McGuire, who also directs this feature adaptation. To which we can only say: Honestly? Has there ever been a clearer indication that not every effective horror short premise can be blown up into even a 90-minute feature? How do you possibly keep the menace of a pool going for that long? Is the pool a threat to this family while they’re inside their house? Will the kids be seeing visions of the pool at school, in church, at band practice? It sounds like fodder for parody, or horror comedy, but Night Swim looks to be playing things entirely straight. Even Swimfan didn’t restrict its threat entirely to the swimming pool, folks. This is Death Bed: The Bed That Eats territory.

And not only that, but they’ve assembled a pretty solid cast as well! Lodge 49‘s Wyatt Russell plays the family patriarch, with a mother played by none other than last year’s Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress nominee Kerry Condon. This is how she wanted to follow up The Banshees of Inisherin? As a mom looking after two kids (Amélie Hoeferle, Gavin Warren) who are under the threat of a malicious swimming pool?

And that’s before you even take a gander at the trailer below, which features not only the worst-played game of Marco Polo ever depicted on film, but a monster that seemingly also knows the rules to said pool game. What more can be said? This looks like some primo January horror trash. Check out the Night Swim trailer as we await this one’s arrival on Jan. 5, 2024.