Night Swim (Collector’s Edition) [Blu-Ray]

Director: Bryce McGuire

Cast: Wyatt Russell, Kerry Condon, Amélie Hoeferle

Release Date: April 9, 2024

A Review By: Kevin Lovell

Film Rating: 4/10
Disc Rating: 7.5/10

Synopsis:

The producers of M3GAN high dive into the deep end of horror with the supernatural thriller, Night Swim. Wyatt Russell (The Falcon and the Winter Soldier) stars as a former major league baseball player, forced into early retirement by a degenerative illness, who moves into a new home with his wife (Oscar® nominee Kerry Condon) and their two children. The new home comes complete with a backyard swimming pool, but a deep secret surfaces and unleashes a malevolent force that will drag the family into the inescapable depths of terror.

Please Note: Universal Pictures Home Entertainment provided me with a free copy of the Blu-ray I reviewed in this Post. The opinions I share are my own.

THE MOVIE – REVIEW:

‘Night Swim’ tells the story of a star baseball player who is suffering from a degenerate illness that has the potential to end his career, but when his family finds a quaint home in a nice neighborhood complete with a backyard swimming pool that could do wonders for his treatment, the family decides to purchase the property in the hope of starting a new life. Initially the pool and new home seem like a dream come true and the man’s illness miraculously starts to improve, but when mysterious events start to occur and the truth behind the history of the property and the accompanying pool come to light, the benefits might just not be worth the cost, assuming of course that it’s not already too late.

Directed by Bryce McGuire (Unfollowed) from his own screenplay based upon a screen story by McGuire & Rod Blackhurst, McGuire does a decent job at the helm of ‘Night Swim’ guiding along the horror film and keeping things looking slick and stylish throughout. The film’s cast includes Wyatt Russell (Overlord), Kerry Condon (The Banshees of Inisherin), Amélie Hoeferle (The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes), Gavin Warren (TV’s Fear the Walking Dead) and more who each offer decent and capable performances for the most part in their respective roles yet are still unable to help this largely mediocre outing become anything truly worthwhile.

‘Night Swim’ is a largely unimpressive and lackluster outing that tries to do for everyday backyard swimming pools what ‘Jaws’ did for the ocean but is never really able to find anything scary or worthwhile to get under the skin of viewers or to really pull us into the tale. It has some potential lingering in the story and the origin of the terror is actually fairly intriguing, and there are a handful of other positives to be found within, yet oddly it seems to dwindle the hints at promise in favor of attempting to keep the audience invested with routine jump scares and a lot of uninteresting moments and concepts that ignore their potential in favor of playing it safe and never taking any chances with the material.

One can almost envision just how wild a full on pool party with the friends and neighbors could be and the gathering quickly has us anticipating what might be to come, only for the film to once again squander the opportunity and offer one minor event that has almost no consequences and isn’t all that scary or exciting by any means and before long it’s hard not to be exhausted by the film’s seeming desire to do almost nothing with its premise, even with a strong cast led by Wyatt Russell and Kerry Condon at its disposal and a well shot and stylish approach that looks fantastic for the most part. While it may not be an utterly terrible film and it does have its strengths, they repeatedly prove to be unable to turn ‘Night Swim’ into anything noteworthy or even remotely exceptional.

OVERALL:

‘Night Swim’ has its share of positives including the capable guidance of director Bryce McGuire and a solid cast led by Wyatt Russell and Kerry Condon, along with a stylish and professional look that rarely disappoints, but the film is never quite able to do anything worthwhile with the concept and material, too frequently squandering potential for standout moments and events in favor of by the book scares and largely generic storylines that are never able to evolve into something that stands out. If you’re a diehard Blumhouse or Atomic Monster fan or are a fan of the cast then you might just want to check this one out and make up your own mind whenever possible, but if you’re not already excited about the film or are somewhat on the fence, then you’re probably better off just skipping ‘Night Swim’ as it likely isn’t going to stand much chance of winning you over with its uneventful and lackluster attempts at scares and eeriness that fall flat far too frequently.

VIDEO:

The Blu-ray release of ‘Night Swim’ features a full 1080p High Definition presentation with the film’s original 2.39:1 Aspect Ratio. The video presentation looks pretty fantastic as a whole and provides a clean, sharp and nicely detailed presentation from start to finish that holds up admirably throughout without any notable troubles arising along the way, especially considering the numerous darkly lit sequences throughout. Detail is solid and character faces along with the ghostly creatures in the pool in addition to backgrounds both interior and exterior look clean, sharp and tremendous for the most part, boosted nicely by clean, deep black levels. Overall, this is a very nice high definition video presentation that never becomes problematic or lackluster and it should easily please viewers.

AUDIO:

The Blu-ray release features a 7.1 channel DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack. This multichannel soundtrack is an absolute treat and easily the most impressive element of the release. It offers a clean, crisp and greatly immersive audio presentation throughout that provides some of the most enjoyable elements of the viewing experience. It repeatedly takes advantage of all seven available channels in order to send creepy voices and noises, along with dialogue, crowd chatter, water effects and a great deal more constantly whipping throughout the various speakers while never allowing any additional dialogue or other audio elements to become distorted or rendered problematic in the process. Overall, this is a magnificent 7.1 DTS-HD MA soundtrack that contributes splendidly to the few eerie moments (and the far less eerie ones) and never comes even remotely close to disappointing.

SPECIAL FEATURES:

The Collector’s Edition Blu-ray release of ‘Night Swim’ features a decent collection of extras including an ‘Audio Commentary with Co-Writer/Director Bryce McGuire’, in addition to some Behind the Scenes Featurettes that include interviews/comments with the cast and crew, plus behind the scenes footage and more. The included Featurettes are ‘Masters of Fear’ (running approximately 7 minutes in length), ‘Demons from the Depths’ (running approximately 7 minutes), ‘Into the Deep’ (approximately 6 minutes) and ‘Marco Polo’ (4 minutes).

*Please note that the above images are taken from the Blu-Ray and resized. They will additionally suffer quality loss as a result of .jpg compression. Larger versions of each image can be viewed by clicking on the image. All images and content included on this Blu-Ray release are the property of their respective owners.

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Film Rating: 4/10
Disc Rating: 7.5/10

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‘Night Swim: Collector’s Edition’ is Now Available to Own on Blu-ray, DVD & Digital from Atomic Monster, Blumhouse & Universal Pictures Home Entertainment

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You can purchase your copy of the ‘Night Swim’ Blu-ray on Amazon HERE!

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