Night Swim falls into the subgenre of horror films that are less about being "scary" than telling an unnerving story. These stories tend to tap into some popular fear of something genuinely mundane but pervasive across our culture. In this case the slight unease many of us have about swimming pools. The story is a solid little cautionary tale mixed with some themes of being careful what you wish for.
The main fault of Night Swim is that it doesn't quite commit to what it should be. Trying to tap into the wave of horror popularity it leans into jump scares and fake outs. Also the story is tight and therefore gets stretched out a bit father than it can really support to reach an average 98 minutes runtime. There is really only an hour of story here so sometimes the film drags. And the film isn't "scary" per se. With the exception of a main set piece which is featured in the trailer, the story really lends itself more to creating discomfort than fear.
The film could have been much stronger if it embraced its Black Mirror like quality and didn't try so hard to fit into the kind of films Blumhouse and Atomic Monster try to make. I enjoyed the story and liked where it was going but found it was reaching too much too often. There is likely a great haunted pool film out there but this one won't become the classic it might have been.
Night Swim
Starring: Wyatt Russell, Kerry Condon
Writer/Director: Bryce McGuire
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