In the first dud of 2024, Night Swim was met with both critical and fan disapproval. The horror feature garnered a poultry 21% on rotten tomatoes. Based on the short film of the same name, Night Swim is centered around Ray Waller (Wyatt Russell), a former major league baseball player forced into early retirement by a degenerative illness. He and his family move into a beautiful new home. Unbeknownst to Ray and his family, the swimming pool has a malevolent force that will drag them under.
Night Swim is basically about a haunted swimming pool. On paper, the premise sounds interesting, but it doesn’t come across as something that can work as a feature-length film. The execution pretty much confirms that Night Swim has some genuinely scary moments because of its original concept, but ultimately, the film’s extended run time hindered more than helped. Feature films being made by shorts is nothing new; however, sometimes, a film’s premise works best under a small scope.
A Brief History Of Short Films
As previously mentioned, filmmakers are no strangers to making a short movie as a proof of concept. That term simply means that the short showcases the overall premise, style, and narrative language that a feature will likely be. Wes Anderson, Quentin Tarantino, and Damien Chazelle are just some of the Oscar winners who started with a proof of concept that resulted in Reservoir Dogs, Boogie Nights, and Whiplash. Other films such as Hard Eight, District 9, and Saw are prime examples of starting out as a short.
However, the concept has to be able to expand where it narratively makes sense. For Whiplash, the short mainly focuses on Fletcher (who was also played by J.K. Simmons) and Andrew during their infamous scene where the music teacher chucks a chair at him for not following the tempo. That scene is beyond a simple moment. It represents the abuse that Andrew deals with, but it also foreshadows an inner demon that keeps him playing in Fletcher’s jazz band.
Whiplash wonderfully tells the story of a Black Sheep who desperately wants to prove that he’s the best drummer out there. Even if it means that approval comes from an abusive teacher. There are so many dynamics that make Whiplash feel like an earned feature film, something that Night Swim never does properly.
The Problem With Night Swim’s Premise
The concept of Night Swim is a contained premise that only works as a short because it’s nearly impossible to make that stretch into something bigger. The focus would have to be on the pool itself and the traumatic history that brought this malevolent force to life. But that wouldn’t be a horror film anymore. It would be a big budget feature that Blumhouse likely didn’t want to pay for. Night Swim does a solid job of developing the family who buys the new house, but the terror is non-existent because their problems aren’t related to the haunted pool.
Sure, once the terror starts to happen then that becomes an issue, but it’s not the central conflict from beginning to end. Plus, there were so many irrational moments and plot holes that it was hard to look past it. Though there’s a deeper meaning behind the malevolent force that haunts the pool, it didn’t make the film any scarier. It also didn’t create a ticking time bomb like The Ring did with the promise of death in seven days after watching a strange videotape.
Night Swim Is Better As A Contained Short
The short itself is pretty solid. The film wisely teases the tension quickly, but then pulls the trigger on the monster at the right moment. There are no questions such as, “Why doesn’t she just get out of the pool?” or “Why doesn’t she just leave the house?” because it’s a self-contained moment that plays out perfectly. Some films just aren’t meant to be a feature, but considering that this was a horror film, executives focused more on production numbers than logic. Night Swim made back its production budget with ease as it was only made for $15 million, but it’s considered one of the worst films of 2024. It highlights that some films are better off in short form.
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