Night Swim review

NIGHT SWIM: 

JANUARY HORROR MOVIE SINKS HARD! 

By Nico Beland

Movie Review: * out of 4

UNIVERSAL PICTURES

Something is very wrong with this pool in Night Swim

 

            A family buys a house with a pool from Hell in Night Swim, the new horror film from Blumhouse and a joint collaboration between Jason Blum (Oculus, Halloween franchise, M3GAN) and James Wan (Saw, Insidious franchise, The Conjuring franchise). The concept sounds promising about a swimming pool with demented monsters deep below the water and could have a lot of potential, plus Wan produced a sequel to The Nun last year that honestly wasn’t that bad so maybe it could float…oh, who am I kidding? It’s a January horror movie! 

            Despite an interesting premise and some usually talented people behind it, this is a poorly-made horror film with cheap scares, plot elements derivative of other movies, and almost non-existent character development. It just feels like a passionless film that was made only to be dumped on the most infamous time for movies. 

            The film follows Ray (Wyatt Russell-Overlord, Lodge 49, The Falcon and the Winter Soldier) and Eve Waller (Kerry Condon-Dom Hemingway, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Banshees of Inisherin) and their kids moving into their new house that comes complete with a swimming pool in the backyard. But when they start to swim in it, horrific things start to occur thus they conclude that their pool is haunted and has a terrifying history. 

            The film also stars Gavin Warren (First Man, 12 Mighty Orphans, Fear the Walking Dead) as Elliot Waller and Jodi Long (Sullivan and Son, Dash & Lily, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings) as Kay. 

            Overall, I could say Night Swim sucks and that it’s a terribly-made horror film, but the perfect analogy for it is that it’s a January Horror Movie. There really isn’t much point in me explaining in great detail why this movie doesn’t work when its sins are no different from all the other awful horror films released during the January month. 

            The film relies heavily on cheap jump-scares, none of which are effective throughout the entire thing. Occasionally, there’s decent set-up for scares involving the pool lights flickering on and off when something creepy about to happen, but they never deliver a good payoff with it and either cuts to the next scene like nothing happened or a lame scare that’s over in just a few seconds. 

            It also doesn’t help that the plot is uninspired and not the least bit terrifying that’s fueled on elements derivative of other horror movies. The scene involving one of the kids in the pool, a lost toy, and a creepy figure inside a gutter is a complete rip-off of Pennywise’s introduction from It and get this, the climax involves the family having to fight off their father who has been possessed by the demonic entities and is trying to kill them, totally not like in the Insidiousmovies which Wan also produced/directed. 

            There are horror movies with characters I’m invested in and care about, there are also horror movies with obnoxious characters that I want to see die, this movie has neither. These are some of the most nothing and forgettable horror movie characters I’ve seen in a long time and the film barely tries to develop them aside from a recurring flashback about the dad being a professional baseball player (Which certainly won’t play a big part in the climax) and a couple of scenes involving the teenage daughter having a crush on some boy at school, that’s pretty much it so I can guarantee that I will be forgetting about these characters once this review is done. 

            Night Swim has all the elements that make a bad January horror movie, over-reliance on cheap jump-scares, a thin plot that’s often derivative of other horror films, and flat characters. It’s a miserable film that’s as much fun as swimming with a turd in the pool and sums up the darkest time of the year for movies especially compared to last January which saw the releases of M3GAN, Missing, and non-horror/thriller movies like Plane which were significantly better than your average January release. 

            Maybe one day, studios will start to value their time more wisely and put out more quality films during this dead time of the year, much like what happened with February. But if films like this are still around and Awards Season is upon us, we’re just gonna have to keep waiting.