From the outset, in the first ten minutes, the sensitive viewer perceives that perhaps it is not the best idea to jump headfirst into sinister waters: a little girl drowns, during the prologue, while trying to rescue a toy from her little brother, who has respiratory assistance, and the protagonist of the film is immediately introduced while he is diagnosed with multiple sclerosis that prematurely retired him from professional baseball.
And there are still some other seriously ill people kicking among the characters in this failed debut by filmmaker Bryce McGuire, who had the support of the bosses of contemporary horror James Wan and Jason Blum to now expand a short film that the filmmaker had made a decade ago.
Wyatt Russell, Kurt’s son, and Kerry Condon stay afloat by playing the parents of a teenage swimmer and a boy without the family sports genes, who decide to settle in the suburbs by moving to a house with a haunted pool. The evil comes from an ancient natural spring of water that fills the pool, a striking fact that gives the impression that a corporation dedicated to producing soft drinks could have financed the film.
McGuire takes advantage of the playful possibilities of this ridiculous premise in the best scene of sinister waters, while the teenager and her new boyfriend go into the pool at night to play Marco Polo. The director prefers not to flood the film with this type of sequences about the primitive fear that water generates, although he treats the subject with the curious reflection of a poolman on human evolution, and even the lack of outdated scenes, just the ones, draws attention. more attractive, in a film that bears the original title Night Swim (something like Night Piletazo).
The filmmaker prefers to flood sinister waters in the density of its themes and, after soaking in references to The glow y Poltergeist, delves into the depths of the metaphor about the acceptance of illnesses with the emphasis always placed on the family sacrifices that they entail. The social aspect of having a house with a pool is also part of McGuire’s interests.
When it sinks
Far from the graphic images of gore that reigns in current terror, although with the occasional forced cut on the hands that justify the presence of a splash of blood, sinister waters It sinks in its second half with the weight of the moral questions recited. The fun caused by the splashing of the characters at a pool party while a monster lurks is overwhelmed by the impulse, as if it were a drama and not a horror movie, to make literal the need to cover a hole while try to cope with grief.
Terror United States, 2024. Original title: “Night Swim”. 98’, SAM 13. Of: Bryce McGuire. Con: Wyatt Russell, Kerry Condon, Amélie Hoeferle, Gavin Warren. Salas: Hoyts Dot, Cinemark Palermo, Cinépolis Houssay and Recoleta, Showcase Belgrano and Avellaneda.