By MICHAEL GINGOLD

Starring Wyatt Russell, Kerry Condon and Amélie Hoeferle
Written and directed by Bryce McGuire
Universal

Opening in what will probably henceforth be known as “the M3GAN slot”–the first-weekend-of-January berth that proved so profitable for Blumhouse, Atomic Monster and Universal’s deadly dancing doll last year–sets up perhaps unfair expectations for NIGHT SWIM, the latest collaboration by the three companies. This is a more modest, perhaps less meme-worthy chiller, though it similarly plays off the irrational fear of a familiar childhood item.

The swimming pool at the center of this story certainly doesn’t look too inviting when the house it’s attached to is first visited by Ray and Eve Waller (Wyatt Russell and Kerry Condon) and their kids as a potential new home. It’s covered with a ratty blue tarp and strewn with leaves and other detritus, and Ray takes a near-fatal tumble into it. Yet writer/director Bryce McGuire, expanding on the popular short film he created with Rod Blackhurst (HERE ALONE), is able to convince us not only that Ray and Eve move in nonetheless, but that the pool is part of the appeal. A major league baseball player forced out of the sport after contracting multiple sclerosis, Ray has lost his sense of self and hopes that the water will prove therapeutic. (Russell is canny casting for this part, since his father Kurt and grandfather Bing were both involved in pro ball, and he himself played professional hockey before he had to drop out due to injuries.)

Thus there’s a sense of purpose behind Ray that one doesn’t find in a lot of haunted-place horror films, and Eve has one too: She’s looking for a place where she and her family can settle down for what will clearly be a new phase of their lives. Teenager Izzy (Amélie Hoeferle) and preteen Elliot (Gavin Warren) could use some stability as well; constant moving to follow her dad’s career has left Izzy feeling like an outsider, though it’s actually something of a relief that when the movie follows her to her new school, it doesn’t follow the formula of making her a target of bullies. Instead, she meets a cute guy who’s on the swim club, and once the pool is cleaned up and sparkling, she invites him over one night while her parents are out and…well, if you’ve seen the trailer, you know how their game of Marco Polo turns out.

McGuire demonstrates a knack for finding the threatening in the familiar with NIGHT SWIM, utilizing off-kilter, disorienting angles, eerie lighting effects in and off the water and nerve-jangling sound design to create a sense of menace around the pool. Many of these moments take place at night, of course, but one of the most effective setpieces happens during a broad-daylight pool party, in which Ray, who has indeed enjoyed the water’s healing properties, also becomes overtaken by a more malignant influence dwelling within it. The pool giveth and the pool taketh away, in the long-standing tradition of Faustian fear films, and it falls to Eve to determine what’s threatening her loved ones and why, and how to deal with it.

This is basic stuff in the supernatural pantheon, right down to the person who knows the evil’s secrets and must be tracked down and visited–though here, that role is well-performed (by Jodi Long) and the sequence builds to a nicely freaky punchline. Here, as elsewhere, McGuire’s fright effects are somewhat scaled down, and viewers shouldn’t go into NIGHT SWIM expecting a heavy-duty shock show. He’s more interested in building a sense of mood and teasing the tension out of the corruption of the commonplace, and motivating the scary stuff via the desires of his leads. The focus is not so much on what’s terrorizing the Wallers as on the Wallers themselves, and how Ray’s desire to recapture his old glories leads him under the sway of the pool-bound spirit.

Ray’s personal demons and transformation under the sway of more literal ones are well-conveyed by Russell, and Condon is equally persuasive in expressing Eve’s devotion to her family and determination to protect them. Marshalling a solid team including cinematographer Charlie Sarroff (SMILE, RELIC) and composer Mark Korven (THE BLACK PHONE, THE LIGHTHOUSE), both of whom contribute significantly to the ominous atmosphere, McGuire also drops in moments of humor, which will make NIGHT SWIM more palatable for those who might find the idea of a haunted pool an unlikely one–even within a genre that has seen far more dubious objects infested with evil.