\n<\/p>\n
Hollywood horror often attempts to work out collective anxiety about the suburbs, that place full of pleasant-looking houses creaking with ghosts and terrors. Suburban life is, admittedly, fundamentally strange, with neighborhoods full of atomized worlds and natural features turned into individual, highly-controlled assets. A forest becomes manicured bushes. A lake becomes a pool.<\/p>\n
Pools are ubiquitous across the American suburbs (just peek out the window when you fly), and the affluence, comfort and fun they represent can turn a middling kid into the most popular one at school, at least during the hot months. They are also ubiquitous in horror, from \u201cGremlins<\/a>\u201d to that greatest instance of suburban anxiety, \u201cPoltergeist<\/a>.\u201d For the Waller family of \u201cNight Swim,\u201d the pool means freedom, friends and a new lease on life. But pools can also be deadly (accidental drowning is the No. 1 killer of young children<\/a>), so the pleasure comes with an edge, a fact the Waller family are about to learn.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Ray Waller (Wyatt Russell) is a former major-league baseball player, a real slugger, whose multiple sclerosis has taken him out of the game. His wife, Eve (Kerry Condon), is eager to finally settle down, proving a lasting home for their two children: breezy teenage Izzy (Am\u00e9lie Hoeferle) and Elliot (Gavin Warren), who struggles more than his sister to fit in with other kids. They find an old house outside the Twin Cities, fall in love, and buy it, then commence cleaning out the gloppy, unused pool in the backyard. It becomes an oasis. And for a while, the pool seems to be helping Ray get better.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n But this is a horror film, so the Wallers cannot have nice things and, unfortunately, neither can we. \u201cNight Swim\u201d is the feature debut of Bryce McGuire, produced by the horror mavens James Wan and Jason Blum and based on McGuire\u2019s 2014 short film. (A tidbit too odd to ignore: that short was filmed in the musician Michelle Branch\u2019s backyard pool.) The first half of the movie is remarkably effective, especially if you\u2019ve ever had a pool, and especially if you\u2019ve swam in it at night, though lots of \u201cNight Swim\u201d happens during the day. Jumps abound, and a scene with Izzy and her crush is especially terrifying.<\/p>\n