I take back everything I said about Hold Your Breath being the worst horror film of the year in my Fright Night Flicks review—Night Swim is the worst film of the year, period.
First off, the entire premise of this film is ridiculous, and it’s obvious that the story feels completely dragged out. This concept doesn’t work as the foundation for a full-fledged plot.
A haunted swimming pool idea should have been a subplot in a film, similar to how Poltergeist (1982) incorporated smaller haunting elements. At least Poltergeist focused more on the broader concept of a haunted house rather than just a swimming pool. I can’t help but question who pitched this as a standalone movie and which producer thought it was a good idea to greenlight it.
Wyatt Russell and Kerry Condon have proven in the past that they are solid actors, with Condon even winning a BAFTA for The Banshees of Inisherin and Russell comes from an acting dynasty. However, their talents are completely wasted in this film. They are stuck playing the blandest characters imaginable, resulting in performances that feel phoned in, as if they didn’t want to be there. Even the supporting cast seems uninterested, and it shows in their performances.
The production values are equally disappointing. Everything on screen feels fake, with tacky production design and bleak cinematography. The overall visual style is uninspired, to say the least. The score and sound design don’t help matters, as nothing in this film feels tense or scary. That’s a real shame, especially given how talented composer Mark Korven is.
It’s clear this is the director’s first film, and since it’s meant to be an expansion of his short film of the same name, it’s easy to see why it didn’t work as a feature-length project. While I won’t be too harsh on the director for a lackluster debut, I hope he learns from this and improves in future projects—much like how Fear and Desire is widely regarded as Stanley Kubrick’s weakest film.
The real blame lies with the producers for greenlighting this project and pushing it into theaters worldwide. I’m honestly surprised this film didn’t bomb—it even made a decent profit over its budget! This feels like something that should have gone straight to streaming, or better yet, never been made at all.
Overall, Night Swim is the worst film of 2024. It turned out to be even worse than I expected. The concept is stupid and pointless, and the weak filmmaking only amplifies its flaws. The more you think about it while watching, the worse it gets. Not only does it surpass Hold Your Breath as my least favorite horror film of the year, but it also overtakes Netflix’s Atlas as the worst film of the year overall.
I give Night Swim a rating of 1/10 and half a star out of 5. This is a rating I hate giving, but the film earned it. It’s so bad that I can’t even recommend it as a “so bad it’s good” watch—it’s just bad. Skip this one, folks!
If you’d like to see more of Robbie’s Horror film reviews, check out his channel Fright Night Flicks on YouTube link down below.
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