Directed by:
Bryce McGuireCinematography:
Charlie SarroffComposer:
Mark KorvenCast:
Kerry Condon, Wyatt Russell, Nancy Lenehan, Ben Sinclair, Jodi Long, Eddie Martinez, Gavin Warren, Amélie Hoeferle, Ellie Araiza, Elijah J. RobertsVOD (3)
Plots(1)
Based on the acclaimed 2014 short film by Rod Blackhurst and Bryce McGuire, the film stars Wyatt Russell as Ray Waller, a former major league baseball player forced into early retirement by a degenerative illness, who moves into a new home with his concerned wife Eve (Oscar® nominee Kerry Condon), teenage daughter Izzy (Amélie Hoeferle) and young son Elliot (Gavin Warren). Secretly hoping, against the odds, to return to pro ball, Ray persuades Eve that the new home’s shimmering backyard swimming pool will be fun for the kids and provide physical therapy for him. But a dark secret in the home’s past will unleash a malevolent force that will drag the family under, into the depths of inescapable terror. (Universal Pictures AU)
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Reviews (3)
The premise with the mysterious and dangerous swimming pool is quite original, but unfortunately it doesn't provide enough material to fill the entire running time in any interesting way. It's an hour and a half long, and it's still too long. After half an hour, the escalating situations start to get repetitive and just boil over (sic!!), and by the last tense twenty minutes it starts to get ridiculous too, there's a lot of black liquid spitting and tearing, and the bland and young Wyatt Russell tries in vain to convey any emotion. Most of the time it didn't offend me with its stupidity, but I still don't understand the cinema release, this only belongs on stream. In the case of Kurt Russell, as well as, say, Clint Eastwood, it's true that their sons don't have much charisma or acting talent.
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A generic January horror flick with zero ideas and even more lacklustre execution. It's like Jason Blum suddenly called out on a whim, "Make me... eh... a haunted pool movie in one week. Go!" It's all bland, cribbed from a blueprint seen a hundred times, devoid of any energy, devoid of anything memorable. No one here has tried to do anything more than make it at least visually look like a movie for the cinema. A puddle at the bottom of a real swimming pool is scarier and, unfortunately, more creative than this entire would-be horror film.
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The first mainstream horror film of the year and it is, as expected, a yawner. The haunted pool idea could have been original, but it's generic to the point of woe in every way. No atmosphere, the scares don't work, it's so light and soft in every way. I'm pretty sick and tired of genre flicks like this. Not fun. 4/10.
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