28/25
I saw this at the Ghent Film Festival 2024
Tale
It shows a suburban house inhabited by a mysterious creature.. Although it was well received at the Sundance Film Festival, some viewers left because of its intensity. One person said, “I can’t take the stress so late at night.” Mentioned in Amanda’s Jedi Show: NIGHT SWIMMING is rubbish | Explained (2024). I booked this movie for two reasons: I’m a longtime horror fan and I saw the overly positive reviews.
Yet I am disappointed all round
It’s a shame that we don’t get to know the main characters and their relationships from the start. The initial tour of the house with the real estate agent that begins the story reveals nothing informative, missing a unique opportunity to enlighten us about the family and the house they will be buying. The construction crew who arrive later, with two painters, one of whom refuses to enter one of the rooms, shows the first sign that something strange is afoot, but we only hear about it secondhand and know nothing of his reasoning. Later, after the family settles into their new home, the son’s friend appears, but is also not properly introduced, but then becomes important.
I found only one moment that managed to send chill signals through my spinal cord
As a seasoned horror watcher, I recognize several suppressed attempts to impress upon us that something sinister exists inside the house, but it all falls apart on arrival. Like many moments, the camera goes up and down the stairs, at high speed, with no connection to the story. The tour of the house, which the camera shows us while no one is still present (the estate agent was yet to arrive), is a nice trick, very quickly showing all the corners, rooms and exterior views on steroids, but no more than nice. This happens in one of the final scenes in front of the large mirror (original woodwork, a century old, we learned from the real estate agent).
Other eerie moments, if any, completely passed me by
It can be shocking that a wardrobe shelf collapses just as a couple is making love on the bed in the same room, creating something of a jump scare. In a newly remodeled house, we can expect this for very natural reasons, such as shoddy work by the construction team we saw earlier. Overall, I don’t care much for the four (family) plus one (son’s friend) main characters due to the lack of backstory on their pasts, their characters and how they relate. We are also left out of the equation, where the motives of "The Presence" are concerned.
The story as it unfolds is not boring and we were entertained with some unexpected developments
The new owners don’t seem to be involved in the past of "The Presence", so there is no revenge or related reasons to scare or annoy them. But I was expecting more given the reviews I’ve seen, which may be my fault and my fault alone.
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