Night Swim is a 2024 American supernatural horror film written and directed by Bryce McGuire (in his feature directorial debut), and based on the 2014 short film of the same name by McGuire and Rod Blackhurst. The film stars Wyatt Russell and Kerry Condon. Its plot follows a suburban family who discover that their backyard swimming pool is haunted.
Jason Blum and James Wan produced under their Atomic Monster and Blumhouse Productions banners, respectively, and mark the first film from the two companies to be released following their merger on January 2, 2024.[3]
Night Swim was released in the United States by Universal Pictures on January 5, 2024.
Plot[]
In 1992, a young girl goes out to her family pool one night to retrieve a boat belonging to her terminally ill brother. While trying to get the boat, something in the pool pulls her underwater.
In the present day, the Waller family are seeking a new, permanent residence after patriarch Ray Waller has been forced to retire from his baseball career due to illness. They purchase the former residence of the Fuller family, but Ray scratches his hand while working to clear out the pool. When the pool maintenance come to inspect it, they reveal that the pool is essentially self-sustaining, taking its water from an underground spring in the area.
As he spends more time in the pool as part of his therapy, Ray's illness seems to go into remission. However, his wife Eve becomes concerned at the changes she sees in her husband, and their children Izzy and Elliot each report being attacked by something in the pool. During a party, the realtor tells Eve about the Fuller's daughter Rebecca drowning in the pool shortly before Ray seemingly forces a child underwater and almost drowns himself, although this is attributed to a side-effect of his illness.
Tracking down the Fuller family after learning that there is a long history of disappearances in the house, Eve meets with Kay, Rebecca's mother. Kay explains that the water that now sustains the pool was once part of a healing spring, but in order to use the water someone else must be sacrificed to it; Kay was compelled to sacrifice Rebecca to the pool creature to heal her brother Tommy's illness. Eve is horrified to realise that Ray is now being healed by the pool but it will take Elliot as a sacrifice.
Eve returns to the house to find that Ray is being controlled by the entity, which traps Elliot in the pool. Eve tries to save her son while Izzy confronts the entity possessing her father, eventually assaulting him with a baseball bat. Eve manages to retrieve Elliot, and is guided to the surface of the pool by Rebecca's spirit. Once back in the garden, Izzy's assault and Elliot's condition help Ray regain control of himself. To stop the entity attacking his children, Ray sacrifices himself to it.
Deciding to remain in the house so that no one else falls victim to the entity, Eve, Izzy and Elliot make arrangements for the pool to be filled in to stop such a thing happening again.
Cast[]
- Wyatt Russell as Ray Waller[4]
- Kerry Condon as Eve Waller[4]
- Amélie Hoeferle as Izzy Waller[4]
- Gavin Warren as Elliot Waller[4]
- Jodi Long as Kay[5]
- Eddie Martinez as Coach E[4]
- Elijah J. Roberts as Ronin[4]
- Rahnuma Panthaky as Dr. Sridhar[4]
- Ben Cinclair as pool tech
- Ellie Araiza as Angel
- Nancy Lenehan as the Waller’s real estate agent[5]
Production[]
Proof-of-concept origins[]
The film's origins go back to 2014, when Bryce McGuire wrote and directed his low-budget five-minute 2014 short film of the same name in collaboration with his friend Rod Blackhurst, which he filmed in the backyard of musician Michelle Branch. It starred Megalyn Echikunwoke in the lead role, which would inspire the character of Izzy Waller in the feature version. McGuire cited Blumhouse's own films, as well as other films such as Poltergeist (1982), Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954), Jaws (1975), Christine (1983), The Night of the Hunter (1955) and The Abyss (1989) as the film's sources of inspiration. He also described the film's story as semi-autobiographical in connection to his childhood and adolescence, saying "Growing up in Florida, surrounded by ocean on three sides, in a climate that can only really be survived by partaking in water ritual, knowing friends who drowned, hurricanes that flooded homes, boating accidents, shark attacks, you come to have a kind of fear and reverence for the water ... I saw that movie [Jaws] when I was 10 years old. We had a swimming pool at the time, and I remember treading water by myself at night when my younger brother turned the lights out. And even though I knew the pool was only 9 feet deep and 18 feet wide, I was certain beyond any doubt that the water was an abyss and something horrible was rising toward me from the depths". The short film was released on YouTube on October 12, 2014, and went viral, allowing McGuire to break into the film industry as a screenwriter. Judson Scott, executive vice president at Atomic Monster, recommended the short to James Wan, who agreed to purchase the rights for a feature film adaptation.[4]
Development of feature version[]
The feature version of Night Swim was reported to be in pre-production in January 2023, following the success of the film M3GAN.[6] McGuire returned to direct from his own screenplay, in which he expanded the plot to add a layer of drama that would drive the story and an emotional layer to the terror that occurs to the characters. This involved adding "an epic, supernatural mythology with a gothic fairytale undercurrent for the story's sinister swimming pool". Wyatt Russell and Kerry Condon were announced to star, with James Wan and Jason Blum producing under their banners, Atomic Monster and Blumhouse Productions, respectively.[6] In April, Amélie Hoeferle, Gavin Warren, Nancy Lenehan and Jodi Long were added to the cast.[5]
Filming[]
Principal photography began on April 11, 2023, in Altadena, California and the Los Angeles region, and lasted 34 days.[7][4]
Music[]
Mark Korven, who also scored Blumhouse's The Black Phone (2021), composed the score for the film. McGuire praised the selection of Korven, saying "...his music is on all my writing playlists and pitched him my vision for the music feeling like it could only come from the water, like some drowned choir rising from the depths, and he was in. He is such a sweet and gifted dude. Only Mark could create sounds this strange and chilling". To reflect the film's influences, McGuire incorporated pop songs from the 1980s to the soundtrack, such as having the character of Ray Waller have a thing for 80s metal to have him feel like he's drawn to the past.[4]
Release[]
Night Swim was released in the United States by Universal Pictures on January 5, 2024,[8] preponed from the original release date of January 19, 2024.[6]
Reception[]
Box office[]
In the United States and Canada, Night Swim is projected to gross $9-11 million from 3,200 theaters in its opening weekend.[2] The film made $1.45 million from Thursday night previews.[9]
Critical response[]
Based on 93 professional critic reviews, the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reports that 26% of those reviews were positive, with an average rating of 4.3/10. Using a weighted average calculator, Metacritic assigned the film a score of 42 out of 100, based on 29 critics, indicating "mixed or average" reviews.
Owen Gleiberman of Variety said audiences are never "immersed in the movie's terror" and wrote "But now, opening in the same junkyard weekend slot, we have another Blumhouse production, Night Swim, which restores a certain order to the cinematic universe by being as tepid and unscary as a proper early-in-January movie should be".[10] Frank Scheck of The Hollywood Reporter called the film "the shallow end of the horror-film pool" and said "despite the filmmaker's best efforts to drum up suspense via the usual jump scares, Night Swim turns out to be just as silly as it sounds".[11] Toronto Star's Peter Howell gave a score of two out of four, saying the short story was superior: "For the most part, though, this feature version of Night Swim further demonstrates the truism that longer is rarely better when it comes to movies. The original was short, sharp and shocking".[12]
Matthew Monagle, writing for The Austin Chronicle, gave the film a score of three out of five: "It may be damning with faint praise to describe Night Swim as a solid movie, but horror fans know just how dark and deep the bottoms of their genre can be. We'll take what McGuire has to offer every day of the week".[13] Alissa Wilkinson of The New York Times gave a positive review. She wrote that the third act's goofiness undermined the "emotional resonance it's going for", but ended the review with, "For a winter horror release — typically a great time to go to the movie theater, munch popcorn and get your pants scared off — it does the job".[14]
References[]
- ↑ Night Swim (15) (December 19, 2023).
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Rubin, Rebecca (2024-01-04). Night Swim, Jason Blum and James Wan's First Film Since Merger, Targets $10 Million Box Office Debut.
- ↑ Grobar, Matt (2024-01-02). Blumhouse-Atomic Monster Merger Now Complete.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 4.5 4.6 4.7 4.8 4.9 '"Night Swim Production Notes (.DOCX).
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 Amélie Hoeferle, Gavin Warren, Nancy Lenehan & Jodi Long Join Blumhouse & Atomic Monster For A Night Swim (April 19, 2023).
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 D'Alessandro, Anthony (2023-01-10). Atomic Monster & Blumhouse Going For Night Swim With Wyatt Russell & Kerry Condon; Bryce McGuire Directing & Writing.
- ↑ Template:Cite Instagram
- ↑ Galuppo, Mia (2023-04-07). Blumhouse Horror Night Swim Moves Up January Release.
- ↑ D'Alessandro, Anthony (January 5, 2024). ‘Night Swim’ Takes Dip Into Post Holiday Frame With $1M+ Previews, $8M-$12M Outlook – Box Office (en-US).
- ↑ Gleiberman, Owen (2024-01-04). Night Swim Review: It's The Amityville Horror in a Swimming Pool, With a Fear Factor That's All Wet.
- ↑ Scheck, Frank (2024-01-04). Night Swim Review: Wyatt Russell and Kerry Condon Struggle to Keep Low-Rent Horror Flick Afloat.
- ↑ Howell, Peter (2024-01-04). There were high expectations for Night Swim, but the horror film is more of a s(t)inker.
- ↑ Monagle, Matthew (January 4, 2024). Movie Review: Night Swim.
- ↑ Wilkinson, Alissa (2024-01-04). Night Swim Review: Hold Your Breath, Forever.
External links[]
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- Night Swim at IMDbLua error in Module:EditAtWikidata at line 36: attempt to index field 'wikibase' (a nil value).
- Night Swim (short film) at IMDb