I Watched 'Night Swim' So You Don't Have To!

'Night Swim' (2024)

The following is a brief “catch up” review for a film that I didn’t get to catch earlier in the year.

“Night Swim” seemed to have everything going for it. It was distributed by Universal Pictures and it was produced by both Blumhouse Productions and James Wan’s Atomic Monster. It even has two good leading actors with Wyatt Russell and Kerry Condon.

So, why does it suck so much?! Well, first, I will say that the setup is decent enough and there are a couple of good jumpscares in the first few minutes of the movie. Then, the Waller family moves into a house and… there seems to be something up with their pool.

Wyatt Russell and Kerry Condon in 'Night Swim'.

Ray Waller is a former MLB player who had to retire early due to being diagnosed with MS. His wife Eve gets a job at a school nearby to get insurance for Ray and in order to support their children Izzy (Amélie Hoeferle) and Elliot (Gavin Warren). As usual in these types of horror films, things are good at first, then things get a little weird, then things go bonkers.

The movie is a demonic possession horror flick. It’s basically “The Amityville Horror” except it’s the pool instead of the house that is haunted. It’s a paint by numbers horror film that doesn’t add anything to the subgenre it embraces.

The performances are also quite bland. However, I don’t blame any of the actors for this because they honestly don’t have much to work with here. The script has terrible dialogue and the premise of a haunted pool just isn’t enough for even a 90 minute feature-film.

The only other thing that I can say about this movie is that being bad isn’t the worst thing going for it. I’ve said this about horror films plenty of times before, there is only one sin a horror movie can’t commit and that sin is when the movie is mind-numbingly boring.

“Night Swim” is not just boring, it may very well be the worst film I’ve seen so far this year.