Friday, January 05, 2024

Night Swim in 300 Words or Less


I have talked about my perhaps inexplicable affection for the 1977 horror film Death Bed: The Bed That Eats here before (see this post) -- it's not just that amazing title! Death Bed: The Bed That Eats is so much fucking weirder than you think it can be that it becomes good. It's proto-Lynchian in its strangeness. And there's also some genuinely gorgeous filmmaking in it, as you'll see in that previous link. But we are (unfortunately) not here to talk about Death Bed: The Bed That Eats -- we are here to talk about Night Swim, the latest Blumhouse horror flick, which they should've titled Death Pool: The Pool That Eats. Ultimately I'm glad they didn't, because that would borrow some of Death Bed's weird cache that Night Swim, a pretty straightforwardly terrible movie, does not earn. 

But that is the gist of Night Swim -- it's about a pool that (I guess?) eats people. It swallows their souls or something -- I don't know, it's never that clear what happens. It's the Death Pool equivilent of the "Ancient Indian Burial Ground" trope -- the water rejuvanates but demands a sacrifice yadda yadda. It's goofy and it knows it's goofy which is in its favor, but it forgets that goofy things can also be -- and in the case of horror movies, even when goofy, should also be -- scary. One thing I will say is that I'm realizing it might be impossible for me to hate anything that Wyatt Russell stars in -- he's always extremely likeable. And the fact that Night Swim calls upon him to become unlikable in its third act is testament to the movie's stupidity -- he just can't do it. I understand why he wanted to try it out, but let this be his warning that he should not. 



5 comments:

Shawny said...

I actually think Wyatt Russell is a good actor. I first saw him in that Black Mirror episode. I thought he was very believable.

Jason Adams said...

I do too! I just think he has found a limitation via this movie.
(I haven't seen that Black Mirror ep yet -- I should watch it this weekend.)

bdog said...

Me too. I just watched 22 Jump Street, he's very cute in that. Also like gim in Overlord.

Spideu137 said...

The only reasons I have to see this is shirtless Wyatt and the magnetic Condon.

Anonymous said...

He’s way unlikable in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier!