22/25

I saw it at the 2024 Ghent Film Festival

Tale

A family becomes convinced they are not alone after moving into their new suburban home. Although well received at the Sundance Film Festival, some viewers walked away due to its intensity. One person said, "I can't handle this stress this late at night." Quoted in Amanda the Jedi Show: NIGHT SWIM is Garbage | Explained (2024). I booked this film for two reasons: I am a longtime horror fan and I saw the overwhelmingly positive reviews.

Yet I am completely disappointed

It is a shame that we do not get to know the main characters and their relationships from the beginning. The initial tour of the house with the real estate agent that began the story does not reveal anything informative, missing a unique opportunity to enlighten us about the family and the home they are about to purchase. The construction crew that arrives later, with two painters, one of whom refuses to enter one of the rooms, shows the first sign that something strange is going on, but we only hear about it secondhand and learn nothing of his reasoning. Later, once the family has settled into their new home, the son's friend appears, but he too is not properly introduced, but later becomes important.

I noticed only one moment that managed to send shivers down my spinal cord

As an experienced horror watcher, I recognize several stifled attempts to impress upon us that something sinister existed inside the house, but upon arrival everything falls apart. Like in the many moments where the camera goes up and down the stairs, at high speed, without any connection to the story at hand. The tour of the house that the camera shows us, while no one is there yet (the real estate agent had yet to arrive) is a nice touch, a very fast show of all the corners, rooms and exterior views on steroids, but it is nothing more than beautiful. This happens in one of the final scenes in front of the large mirror (original wood, a century old, as we learned from the real estate agent).

Other disturbing moments, if there were any, passed me by completely

It can be a shock that a closet shelf collapses just as a couple is making love on the bed in the same room, creating a kind of scare. In a newly renovated house, we can expect this for very natural reasons, such as the shoddy work of the construction team we saw earlier. All in all, I don't care much for the four (the family) plus one (the son's friend). ) main protagonists, due to the lack of information about their past, their characters and how they relate to each other.

The story as it unfolds is not boring and we had fun with some unexpected developments

Ditto we are left out of the equation where the motives of the "Presence" are concerned. It seems that the new owners are not involved in the past of the “Presence”, so no revenge or related motives that can scare or annoy them. But I expected more, given the reviews I saw, which could be my fault and my fault alone.