Night Swim

You can tell when a scary scene's coming, which made it suck for me because the build ups weren't great. The actors seemed to put effort into making it engaging, but their efforts only went so far.

This horror movie revolves around a swimming pool. After the first frightful event occurred, everything felt like a stretch. It feels more suited to being a short film, but even then it could've been drawn out better. The concept seems derivative, reminiscent of horror movies that have already been done before. A supernatural entity grants wishes but at a cost, a trope seen not only in horror but in other film genres. The only deviation here is that instead of a magical bean or demonic entity, it's a swimming pool.

They should have trimmed down the family-focused moments and delved deeper into the pool's eldritch origins. I anticipated an exploration of its history, envisioning a showcase of people worshipping it, perhaps rooted in Native American mythology and folklore. And the monsters sucked, looked like copses from a cop show, there could have been more imaginative entities. For instance, a tale about an evil witch who once granted wishes, was drowned in the springs, and now her soul resides there. Something. Anything!

It's frustrating when horror movies fail to be scary, that's bare minimum expectation. Dictionary definition of the genre. This story should have been crafted to instill genuine fear of swimming pools. There was immense potential left untapped.

The monsters weren't scary. The ending wasn't all that. 'something has you, you need to fight it' is so overused, it's fine if the movie is decent but when the movies boring, it doesn't work. This movie is 90min but like a never-ending 3-hour ordeal. It's more of a family drama than a horror movie. It's like the director crafted a drama centered around a family coping with a superstar dad grappling with an MS diagnosis, but then studio said no, make it a horror. And it's terrible at that.

The film is terribly clichéd. Take any other horror film and compare it with this one and you won't see any difference. Quite a good story with water, but when you see the monster you start laughing.

The heroes are like some kind of Aquamen, they spend SOOO long under water that you start to think who will kill them first, a monster or lack of oxygen?

The acting is pretty good. I believe them, although at some points they underplay very much.

The editing of the film is just weird. Scenes are cut short and at some points we don't even see who is speaking or what is happening.

P. S. The ending of the film is very fast and choppy. They just closed their pool but this raises a question. Do other residents have water that doesn't come from this source? And where is this source located? Was it really only one family that lived here and why don't they talk about the others?

Plot

A family moves into a new home, unaware that a dark secret from the house's past will unleash a malevolent force in the backyard pool.

Cast

Wyatt Russell (Who does not have his fathers talent) and a bunch of folk I'm unfamiliar and unimpressed with. And a director I know only from a surprisingly enjoyable short film (Pig).

Verdict

This is a prime example of Hollywood losing their way when it comes to horror, it's so incredibly formulaic down to the letter of predictability.

Yes there is only so much you can do with a movie about a haunted pool, but still being an interesting premise I assumed they had a decent idea behind it and a screenplay that would pan out into something enjoyable.

In reality the concept is passable but that's pretty much all they had, no real content and a very meh ending. And the journey? Every trope, every cliche, everything you expect from a big budget horror feature and I'm so very very tired of them.

If you like The Conjuring, Annabelle, Insidious, Talk to Me and other trite horror films this is for you. If you like substance, skip it.

Rants

I want a pool, you see the the US it appears it's a very middle class thing whereas in the UK it's pretty much the top 1% and therefore extremely rare. Any day now I'll win the lottery and get myself an olympic sized one, outdoors but with the facility for it to be covered at anytime! Right next to my mansion, and multiple acres of land, my zoo and my unicorn paddock.

Breakdown

Interesting concept Weak leading man Couldn't be executed any more generically.

This film was bland. Can't say it was bad, can only say it was not worth it.

I like Wyatt Russell, what's not to like, he's the son of Kurt Russell, that's a lot to like. He heads up a movie with a long subplot about an ex-baseball player, for whom baseball is everything until an illness takes him out of the game forcing him to get to know his family better.

It would have been a nice family drama if the (lack of) horror did not get in the way.

This was not scary, not frightening, nothing got me excited, not enough star power in the film to look at to make it worth looking at.

I'm very surprised this made it into theatres instead of premiering on Hulu or Shudder.

I can only say wait for it to come out on one of these streaming channels cause it's a waste of money otherwise.

I wanted to be more scared than I was when I watched the film. The pool or better yet a body of water is an excellent setting for a horror film. I guess the idea of it is greater than the execution of an actual film that takes place in a pool. I immediately think of The Creature from the Black Lagoon or Jaws or The Abyss when there's anything to do with water and horror. I thought maybe this would add onto that pantheon of films as an addition. I was definitely scared at moments but it felt like the filmmakers dropped the ball and couldn't keep the tension going as the film went on. A great cast and they did their part. I just think the overall film didn't hit as it could have.