I first heard of this film back in mid December, the premise alone hooked me and I was sold, I mean… a haunted swimming pool is something I had never seen in a horror movie before.

But alas, as the title suggests it sadly sinks deep down to the bottom of the pool, it was a massive disappointment to say the least, the scares are cheap and predictable the decisions the characters make are rather questionable as well, half the time I was saying to myself “why are doing that, don’t do that, oh my god you absolute cockwomble”

The film follows ex baseball star Ray Waller played by Wyatt Russel and his family consisting of mum Eve played by Kerry Condon, and their two offspring, son Elliot played by Gavin Warren and daughter Izzy played by Amélie Hoeferle.

The Waller family move in to the home where we’re met with our first cliche everybody, hold on to your swimming trunks because there is a load of these bad boys!

The house was previously the victim of a murder, a young girl back in 1992 was trying to fetch a boat in the pool for her terminally ill younger brother, an unseen force pulls her in and drowns, cliche number one too your collection point please!

The family then find the pool in disarray and vow to repair it! Once repaired they find out that it’s self sustained and that the water is from a nearby spring.

Ray decides to use the pool to his advantage and uses it as part of his therapy for his illness (remember I said that okay because we are going to be revisiting that very very shortly) now mysteriously his illness goes in to remission much to the surprise of his family.

The mum Eve is concerned about the behaviour of her husband and also her children after they say they were attacked by something in the pool, ready for cliche number two, here it comes… the family cat goes missing, so far we have haunted house, mystery murder, mystery behaviour and animals inexplicably going missing.

The family then decide to do some digging regarding the house, oh before we get on to that that mystery illness that went into remission, yeah well Ray nearly drowns and also forces a child underwater, it’s then blamed on said mystery illness… you know, the one went in to remission yeah that one.

They do some digging and find that there have been more disappearances in that house! Cliche number three your time has come.

Now turns out the pool that has the self sustaining water source from the local spring, well turns out eve goes and visits Rebecca’s mum Kay (Rebecca was the girl back in 1992 retrieving the boat for her sick brother Tommy) Kay tells Eve the mother of all cliches… the pool water is a special type of healing water, and in order to use the healing capabilities you must sacrifice a family member.

Kay in order to help her sick son recover is compelled to sacrifice Rebecca (and the mother of the year award goes too…) Eve now realises that Ray is under the demons curse and is now sacrificing their son Elliot to the demon.

The family band together to save Elliot from the clutches of the pool demon, Ray after being hit on the head with a baseball bat regains his strength and decides to sacrifice himself to the demon, putting and end to the family’s ordeal.

The surviving family members consisting of Eve, Izzy and Elliot decide to remain in the house and fill the pool in, preventing another family falling victim.

Seriously the decision making in this film is so questionable it borders on comedy, you fill the pool in so that no one and I mean no one can discover it, and then swiftly move out, I cannot be the only one on here who thinks that! It sounds logical don’t it? I just don’t understand why you’d stay in a house that’s full of bad memories, you’d move out right? Right?

Night Swim was produced by Blumhouse, which in a sense is rather disappointing as I love Blumhouse horror movies, I mean they have bought us some decent films they really have, biggest mistake was releasing it this soon in the year, when in reality it should’ve been released this October/November which is prime time for horror movies.

January is aptly called Dump Month, mainly because filmmakers dump these sorts of films on us and they rarely get a good review, not to mention the box office numbers reach an all time low.

Night Swim proves that just because you have an interesting premise, if you overstuff it with cliches and questionable decision making it’s going to fall flat very, very fast.

Now I do have something positive to say, the acting is somewhat decent, Wyatt Russell does a bang up job as do the kids in this film.

Night Swim is… it’s decent and I don’t know why filmmakers don’t make more of these, the premise starts off really well and I really want to see more unconventional haunted places, like say a haunted treehouse or a haunted secret hideout that you used to make as a kid.

The problem with this film is it falls flat massively, it drags you in and you fall for it hook line and sinker, by the end of the film your left thinking “was that it” it was such a letdown, I left the cinema gutted, because what was what I thought an intriguing premise turned out to be another cliche ridden horror, it resembles those horror films you used to find in the bargain bin at your local supermarket.

3/10 Night Swim gets from me, it’s as I said and interesting premise but it doesn’t fully deliver on that.

As always until next time, catch ya later 🙂