By MICHAEL GINGOLD
Ryan Turek has been a member of the Blumhouse team for eight years now, having segued from being one of the on-line horror community’s most notable writers (as Ryan Rotten) to producing a string of the company’s horror hits. Having scored last year on the first weekend in January with M3GAN, Blumhouse and Universal are shooting for similar success with NIGHT SWIM, and RUE MORGUE spoke with Turek about this latest dive into the supernatural.
Opening tomorrow, NIGHT SWIM was scripted and directed by Bryce McGuire, based on the popular short of the same title by Rod Blackhurst (HERE ALONE) and McGuire. It stars Wyatt Russell as Ray Waller, a major-league baseball player forced into early retirement by multiple sclerosis. Seeking a fresh start, Ray moves into a new suburban house with his wife Eve (Kerry Condon from THE BANSHEES OF INISHERIN), teenage daughter Izzy (Amélie Hoeferle) and young son Elliot (Gavin Warren). The house comes with a large pool, and swimming in its waters promises to heal Ray and allow him to restart his pro ball career–but a malevolent entity lurking in its waters soon threatens both him and his family.
Can you talk about how the NIGHT SWIM short came to Blumhouse and was developed into a feature?
That’s a real easy story. Basically, we have a growing partnership with Atomic Monster [the companies officially merged as of yesterday], which is of course known for all the James Wan-spearheaded and -produced films, the CONJURING Universe and so on. They’d been developing NIGHT SWIM based on the short film they had acquired, and they brought it to us. They felt like the sensibilities of the story aligned with what we were doing, and it’s a spooky haunted-pool movie with a strong family drama at its core. Those are the hallmarks of all the Blumhouse and Atomic Monster films–appealing, dramatic characters with a really high concept–and here’s a story that preys on every fear of the water you can imagine, and draws inspiration from every characteristic you can imagine from having a pool.
I never grew up with a pool, but I’ve been in plenty of them, from community pools to friends’ pools, and we all played the same games–you know, hiding under the diving board while someone’s about to dive, and you’re gonna try to grab them, trying to put your hands in the pool filter, or throwing an action figure in there just to see what happens [laughs], you know? Or diving deep to collect coins, down near the pool drain. When we got the script, we had certain expectations of the character strengths and plot strengths and stuff like that, but while we were reading it, what we were really hoping we’d see were certain scenes like a Marco Polo scene, that kind of stuff. And it was a pleasant surprise that Bryce had carved out everything imaginable like that.
Did the script undergo any significant changes once your team came on board?
I think it strengthened. It was always the story of Ray Waller and his family, and he is diagnosed with MS; that was always a big component of it. I think the kinds of things we found along the way had to do with the mythology of the pool. I believe that less is always more, but being in this business, and the path I’ve taken, and growing up a horror fan, I feel like audiences are leaning into wanting to know more about what’s behind the evil, without it being spoon-fed to them. So we learned that people were definitely interested in the pool’s history, and we expanded some of that.
The movie is definitely character-based, and I appreciated that about it, while at the same time it doesn’t skimp on the scary stuff.
That’s a key thing: Ray and Eve Waller are three-dimensional characters. There were a couple of films that we talked about very early on in preproduction; obviously there was THE AMITYVILLE HORROR, and BURNT OFFERINGS came up a lot, which has that great scene with Oliver Reed in the pool. We recently rewatched THE AMITYVILLE HORROR, and these are real people that James Brolin and Margot Kidder are playing; you know where they’re coming from and you know who they are, and understand the decisions they make. And here, it was super-important to understand Ray’s dilemma, and what the pool is going to feed off of. Same with Eve; I don’t think it’s super-spelled out–there are hints of it–but I love the subtlety that Bryce had woven into the script, where this family has always been on the go because of Ray’s career, and they all have different perspectives. You have the son who’s looking for his dad’s attention, you’ve got the teenage girl who wants to finally have a town to call her own, and a school and friends to call her own, and Eve, who’s looking to plant roots and continue her career, which she sort of put on the sidelines. These are all things that make for good drama, and obviously the adversary, which is the pool, is going to exploit that in some way, shape or form.
Were you involved in the casting at all? It’s cool that your lead is Wyatt Russell, whose family has a history in baseball.
Yeah, exactly! One great thing about Blumhouse is, we have a terrific casting team led by Terri Taylor, and her batting average is super-high. So when we got into it, and were able to get Wyatt and also Kerry Condon, coming off THE BANSHEES OF INISHERIN, we were very lucky. I didn’t know about Wyatt’s baseball past, but when Bryce met with him and he brought it up, we were just like, “Oh my God, that’s our guy!” And also, he’s just super-awesome, and we loved that we got to work with one of the Russells.
You mentioned creating the mythology; with Blumhouse having done so many films of this type, is it difficult coming up with a fresh supernatural backstory at this point?
Yeah, I think so. It all boils down to a few things: character wants, the theme of the movie, and then obviously, what’s the most organic thing that the supernatural entity could be after, you know? I feel like we’re all accustomed to it now, that we’re going to learn just what this thing is. It is kind of tough to draw something fresh and new, but I don’t believe you need to go all the way with it, you know? Just understanding that the pool grows in strength the more it gives to you, and the more it takes from you.
What I love about NIGHT SWIM too is that Bryce worked in a long history of the pool; it has roots in Mother Nature. In a way, this is almost an eco-horror movie, because it began as a natural spring, so that’s fascinating too. But yeah, with every film that we tackle, there’s the question of, what’s the main character’s want, and what’s the adversarial want that’s going to get in the way of that? In the last INSIDIOUS movie, it was a question of, when the red-faced demon came back, what does he want? Well, he wants control of Dalton; let’s let him achieve that this time. It’s a fun puzzle to put together with each movie.
What I’m really thrilled about with NIGHT SWIM is, I grew up watching all the AMITYVILLE HORROR movies, and all the possessed-house movies, and I just love that Bryce and Rod Blackhurst came to us with something that kind of relocates the haunting. I love that it’s centered on something very commonplace and very relatable, and a place where you’re most susceptible to danger. I’m just super-excited to see people get thrilled and chilled by the notion of a haunted-pool movie.
Are you working with Blackhurst on anything right now? I’m a big fan of his movie HERE ALONE from a few years back.
Yeah, I like Rod, and that door’s open for sure. Rod has a new movie coming out [BLOOD FOR DUST] that I’m excited to see that’s kind of a noir film, and yeah, we’re always talking.
Look for words from Turek on Blumhouse’s upcoming projects at this site soon!
