Aren’t real estate agents required to reveal problems with homes?
Then, why didn’t the Waller family learn someone had died in their backyard pool? In “Night Swim” it’s a little tidbit that doesn’t emerge even when parents let their teens come over for a pool party.
By that time, the die has been cast.
The pool is haunted and able to pull off some frightening things. For Ray Waller (Wyatt Russell), a Brewers third baseman, there’s a silver lining. The effects of his multiple sclerosis are minimized whenever he’s in the pool.
His children aren’t as lucky. They’re haunted by someone – something? – whenever they dip in.
Writer/director Bryce McGuire uses tricks from “Jaws,” “It” and “The Shining” to trigger quick responses and has a fairly good thriller on his hands. Then he circles the drain with a creature that takes several forms (and has the ability to get out of the pool and haunt).
Keeping this simple – blaming the problem on poor plumbing, for example – could have made some of those nighttime fears a little more plausible.
When that pool party takes a turn, “Night Swim” jumps the shark, even though it doesn’t need to.
Oscar nominee Kerry Condon, as Wyatt’s wife, Eve, has her own moments of awareness. She, too, sees problems but not until her children have spent too much time underwater searching for quarters.
The “dead girl in the pool” story suddenly surfaces and then it’s just a matter of connecting the dots.
McGuire shoots a lot of this in daylight, which lightens the dread. He doesn’t quite play enough with the pro athlete angle and could have mined Condon for emotional effect. Gavin Warren, as son Elliot, is quite good at playing the edges of the drama and should have been used more. An underlying plot – about dad’s career – could have been a much better trigger than a battle in the pool.
Still, “Night Swim” manages to make you wary of ever swimming in the dark, no matter what lurks in the drain. It also insists you get that all-important home inspection before a mysterious goo oozes from the drain.
