Presence (2025) Neon/Horror-Thriller RT: 85 minutes Rated R (violence, drug material, language, sexuality, teen drinking) Director: Steven Soderbergh Screenplay: David Koepp Music: Zack Ryan Cinematography: Steven Soderbergh Release date: January 24, 2025 (US) Cast: Lucy Liu, Chris Sullivan, Callina Liang, Eddie Maday, West Mulholland, Natalie Woolams-Torres, Lucas Papaelias, Julia Fox.
Rating: *** ½
Anybody who goes to see Presence expecting something along the lines of Poltergeist or The Amityville Horror is going to be sorely disappointed. It’s not that kind of horror movie. There are no jump-scares or showy CGI effects. I would describe it as a dysfunctional family drama dressed up as a ghost story. It’s actually rather brilliant.
The hard part of reviewing Presence is telling you what it’s about without giving too much away. I strongly believe everybody should go in not knowing a lot about it. It’s more fun that way, wouldn’t you agree? Okay, here we go.
I’ll start by telling you the story unfold entirely from the perspective of the presence. It’s a spirit or ghost. Who it is, we don’t know. Not yet. It lives in an empty house. That is, until a new family moves in. It consists of a mother Rebecca (Liu, Kill Bill: Vol. 1), a self-centered career woman who might be involved in some sort of illegal business. Her husband Chris (Sullivan, This Is Us) carries the entire emotional weight of the family, especially as it pertains to teenage daughter Chloe (Liang, Tell Me Everything) who’s depressed over the recent death of her best friend. Rebecca dotes on son Tyler (newcomer Maday), an arrogant high school swim champ who takes pride in being a total dick. He’s a chip off his mother’s block.
Chloe is the first to realize they’re not alone in the house. She senses the presence when the family visits the house for the first time. She sees evidence of its existence on multiple occasions. She thinks it might be the spirit of her departed friend. Naturally, her family doesn’t believe her. They think it’s a manifestation of her grief. Then they see it in action. It trashes Tyler’s room after he brags about humiliating a female classmate with his best bud Ryan (Mulholland, Dark Harvest). Denial turns into fear quickly.
And now for a few words about this Ryan guy. He’s the most popular boy at school or so Tyler says. He’s a confident, smooth-talking type who takes a liking to Chloe. Would it be a spoiler to reveal he’s a total creep? Nah, I didn’t think so.
Only Steven Soderbergh could shape a ghost story like he does with Presence. He hasn’t always been consistent with his work. He’s made several great ones (Out of Sight, The Limey and Traffic), some bad ones (Solaris, The Laundromat and all three Magic Mike movies) and a few pretentious ones (Full Frontal, The Girlfriend Experience). He likes to experiment with style. He filmed his 2018 thriller Unsane entirely on an iPhone (under his frequently used pseudonym “Peter Andrews”).
Soderbergh uses his own name on Presence in which the camera plays a pivotal role. It represents the POV of the spirit who watches the family drama develop, just watching and waiting for something that will reveal its reason for being there in that house with that family. We see only what the presence sees. We get crucial information in bits and pieces. Soderbergh gets that film is primarily a visual medium. He’s fluent in film language. His camera tells the story well thanks to his expert cinematography and editing.
He’s helped greatly by a well-written screenplay from David Koepp (Jurassic Park) that serves mainly as a roadmap for the direction of the story. It merely points the way for Soderbergh’s camera. However, and it’s the movie’s only flaw, it doesn’t develop all of the plot threads it introduces like Rebecca’s questionable business dealings and her troubled marriage to Chris. Then again, the plot isn’t really about these things. It’s about something much deeper. Specifically, it’s about the choices, bad and good, people make and how it affects them in the long, long run- i.e. the Afterlife.
The acting in Presence is superb. Liu excels at playing cold, heartless characters with no empathy. She does it again here and does it so effectively; it makes more of an impact when she finally breaks at some point. Sullivan is great as the husband struggling to hold it all together without a solid support system. It’s hard when you have a wife who dismisses all your concerns by saying things will sort themselves out with time. Maday, in his acting debut, believably depicts an entitled a**hole whose behavior towards his sister is borderline abusive. His attitude towards women in general is appalling.
The real star of Presence, after the title character of course, is Liang. I’ve never seen her before. She’s awesome as Chloe, a troubled girl dealing with a lot. She makes you feel sympathy rather than pity for her character. She doesn’t overplay the role of somebody with a gift. She doesn’t see ghosts; she only senses them. It scares the hell out of her just the same. She doesn’t overdo it in this area either. Hers is a beautifully controlled performance. I think we’re looking at star here.
January is a month typically reserved for crappy horror movies. It makes me wonder why the studio decided to release Presence now. It’s far from crappy. It’s effectively eerie without resorting to loud jump-scares or monstrous apparitions. It’s more of a state of mind. It probably won’t please mass audiences looking for something more mainstream. Maybe that’s why Neon dumped it in January. I can only hope its audience discovers it. It’s a truly original piece that doesn’t deserve to be overlooked.
