Night Swim (2024)    Universal/Horror    RT: 98 minutes    Rated PG-13 (terror, some violent content, language)    Director: Bryce McGuire    Screenplay: Bryce McGuire    Music: Mark Korven    Cinematography: Charlie Sarroff    Release date: January 5, 2024 (US)    Cast: Wyatt Russell, Kerry Condon, Amelie Hoeferle, Gavin Warren, Jodi Long, Nancy Lenehan, Eddie Martinez, Elijah Roberts, Rahnuma Panthaky, Ben Sinclair, Ellie Araiza, Ayazhan Dalabayeva, Joziah Lagonoy, Aivan Alexander Uttapa.

Rating: *

 I might as well get it out of the way now. The first new release of 2024, the Blumhouse horror film Night Swim, is all wet. I shouldn’t be surprised, not really. Typically, every year starts out with a bad PG-13 fright flick. Last year’s M3GAN was the exception to the rule. It was actually pretty good. I never believed for a second that Blumhouse could pull it off again. Lo and behold, they didn’t. Night Swim is as lame as almost any PG-13 horror you could name.

 There’s something evil in the pool. That’s the Reader’s Digest version of the plot synopsis. I’d be perfectly content to leave it at that since I’m not too keen on reliving the tedious viewing experience that is Night Swim. Alas, my job requires me to elaborate, so here goes. I truly hope you all appreciate it. A family looking to lay down roots in a community moves into a new house. It has a swimming pool in the backyard. It’s ideal for the dad Ray Waller (Russell, Overlord), a former baseball star forced into retirement with the onset of MS. He can use it for water therapy. Over time, his MS goes into remission. It seems that the water, taken from a nearby spring, has healing powers. However, there’s a price and it isn’t pleasant.

 Ray sees the pool as a godsend; the rest of his family does not. His wife Eve (Condon, The Banshees of Inisherin) is concerned about the changes she’s seeing in him. Both kids, teen daughter Izzy (Hoeferle, The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes) and young son Elliot (Warren, Fear the Walking Dead), were attacked by something in the pool. The family cat has disappeared. A girl that lived there in 1992 disappeared in the pool. Like I said, there’s something evil in it.

 Written and directed by Bryce McGuire, Night Swim is an expansion of his same-named short film from ten years ago. It’s his first feature film and the good news is there’s nowhere to go but up. Okay, he could conceivably do worse, but let’s not completely discourage the man his first time at bat. At the same time, I’m not going to lie. Night Swim is a bad movie. It’s boring, pointless and not the least bit scary or original. I haven’t been this not scared of a so-called scary movie since the last (or first for that matter) Blair Witch film. It moves at roughly the same pace as molasses going uphill in winter. The CGI is just plain terrible. There are no effective “BOO!” scenes. There aren’t any ineffective ones either. Night Swim is horror on life support. Somebody should have pulled the plug during production.

 Is there any point in discussing the acting? It’s as bad as everything else in Night Swim. But I don’t blame the actors, not entirely. McGuire doesn’t give them much to work with. Their characters are paper thin and dull. Character development is in short supply. By movie’s end, I felt like I was watching a bunch of strangers. I didn’t care what happened to any of them. The lack of development extends to the screenplay as well. The plot is half-assed and doesn’t really explain anything.

 I can’t imagine anybody being entertained by Night Swim, not even the preteens and young teens for whom it’s intended. They’ll be as bored as any seasoned horror vet sitting through this pile of dreck. The only positive thing I can say here is that I only have to find nine more movies to put on my 10 Worst of 2024 list at the end of the year. Somebody definitely pissed in this pool.