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10th August 2024
03:13pm BST
Night Swim, the 2024 horror movie starring Irish Oscar-nominated actress Kerry Condon (The Banshees of Inisherin), is now available to watch via NOW Cinema and Sky Cinema.
Produced by legendary horror figures James Wan (The Conjuring, Saw) and Jason Blum (Get Out, Sinister), the film sees Condon play Eve, the wife of Ray (Wyatt Russell, The Falcon and the Winter Soldier) - a former major league baseball player forced into early retirement by a degenerative illness.
Secretly hoping against all odds to return to pro ball, Ray convinces Eve that they should move, with their two children, into a new house with a swimming pool.
This is as he thinks the pool will help with his condition, providing physical therapy for him.
As soon as Ray starts taking dips in its waters, he does in fact start to miraculously recover.
A string of bizarre incidents, however, leads Eve to realise that lurking in the depths of her family's new swimming pool is a malevolent force.
It's no secret that we here at JOE were very excited about Night Swim, given the fact that it was Condon's first movie post-Banshees of Inisherin and obviously because it is about a haunted swimming pool.
And though the film received largely negative reviews from critics upon release - its predictable story and PG-13 level scares were common sources of criticism - we actually thought the movie contained some real pleasures.
Chief among these were its moments of humour (such as a hilarious cameo by Ben Sinclair as a pool cleaner), the impressive way writer-director Bryce McGuire makes the central swimming space feel cinematic and Condon's very empathetic performance as a woman realising something is not quite right with her husband.
In fact, we'd totally watch a Night Swim 2 - which may be possible as the 2024 flick was a box-office success.
You can read a sample of some of the positive reviews for Night Swim right here:
AV Club: "Despite some choppy waters in the back half, this is a fun, funny, often genuinely unnerving horror movie experience, one that might make you think twice about that first swim of the year when summer rolls around."
Empire: "Last-act let-down aside, this is a confident and creepy ghoul-in-the-pool horror that makes Bryce McGuire a filmmaker to watch. Wusses, bring armbands."
Los Angeles Times: "McGuire, who executed a trial run of this concept with a 2014 short film, knows exactly what he’s doing, scene after scene, especially when it comes to the deliciously sadistic grammar of suspense."
Roger Ebert.com: "Producers Jason Blum and James Wan, both horror titans, once again show they know how to freak audiences out while maintaining a sly sense of humour."
Night Swim is available to watch in Ireland and the UK through NOW Cinema and Sky Cinema.
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