Presence

Written by David Koepp (Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, The Mummy 2017) and directed by Steven Soderbergh (Logan Lucky, Side Effects), Presence has an intriguing concept that doesn’t completely work in its execution. Shot in three weeks almost entirely in one location with a $2 million budget, Presence is a creative powerhouse that lacks a lasting impression. All of Presence is from the perspective of an entity in a suburban house. The supernatural thriller seemingly has no close-ups while the cinematography is different in a way that seems like it was shot with a slight fish-eye lens. A family, The Paynes – Rebekah (Lucy Liu), Chris (Chris Sullivan), Chloe (Callina Liang), and Tyler (Eddy Maday), moves into the empty house revealed at the beginning of the film. The snafued relationship between The Paynes is palpable as soon as they’re introduced. Rebekah is committing financial fraud and her husband Chris is contemplating separation or divorce. Rebekah also prioritizes her older son Tyler and his athleticism in swimming over her younger daughter Chloe who she barely acknowledges. Meanwhile, Chris is concerned for Chloe since her best friend abruptly died and she still hasn’t gotten over it. The idea of a horror or supernatural film from the perspective of the ghost or entity is insanely cool, but the issue here is that this presence isn’t given much to do besides witness people have sex and argue. There are expected supernatural elements here like doors mysteriously opening or closing on their own, a stack of books floating in the air one by one and being stacked neatly on a nearby desk, and shelves and posters being ripped off the wall. Before The Paynes arrive, the first scene of the film is supposed to be this entity wandering around an empty house. It’s fascinating at first but becomes dizzying and nauseating, which may represent the claustrophobic aspect of being trapped somewhere with no escape but still not entirely fun to watch. Presence features the first truly nasty on-screen character of the year in Ryan (West Mulholland). Ryan is a popular classmate of Tyler and a drug dealer. He gets romantically involved with Chloe and tries to appear as nonchalant and supportive. Cracks bubble up to the surface early on as he loses his temper often and his rambling typically sounds like a villain attempting to explain their evil plan in detail to a subdued victim. The film's editing is bizarre since most sequences either feel like one-take or suddenly shift to black before the next scene. Presence is presented like a bunch of scenes randomly stitched together that just happen to make a semi-coherent story. The acting in Presence is fine, but two of the four Payne family members are complete assholes while the other two are pushovers. So it’s difficult to be invested in any of their character developments truly. The existence of the entity in the film is deeply connected to grief and trauma, which allows people who have almost died or experienced something truly traumatic to see or feel someone who has died. A medium is brought into The Payne's home after everyone but Chris stops making fun of Chloe’s encounters with the entity. The medium does little for the film apart from solidifying that Chloe isn’t making it up and drawing attention to an item in their living room that will be a part of the last scene in the film. There is a unique concept in Presence that hasn’t entirely been explored in the genre with captivatingly different cinematography and a talented cast to keep you intrigued. But there aren’t enough actual horror elements in Presence to be scary and the family drama is mostly uninteresting apart from this entity being a part of their lives. Presence is a close-but-no-cigar thriller with unusual camera tricks and everyone staring off slightly to the left or right to drive its sense of mystery.

Diehard fans of horror films have often complained that releases in this genre don’t get the kind of respect they deserve, almost as if they’re the Rodney Dangerfield of moviemaking. Unfortunately, it’s a reputation that’s frequently deserved given that many of these offerings are formulaic, predictable, tedious and needlessly gratuitous. The emergence of “smart” horror films has helped to offset this somewhat, imbuing these pictures with a degree of maturity and respectability that has long been sought but lacking. But, if these films truly want to earn the kind of esteem that their followers crave, these productions have to get better at doing what they do, yet the efforts that go into yielding such results all too often come up short, as is the case in this latest project from acclaimed director Steven Soderbergh. In all honesty, this attempt at creating an elevated version of a prototypical haunted house story leaves much to be desired. When a family of four moves into their new suburban home, strange happenings begin to occur, nearly all of which affect Chloe (Callina Liang), a troubled teen who recently lost her best friend under mysterious circumstances. But she’s not alone in her troubles – her parents, Rebekah (Lucy Liu) and Chris (Chris Sullivan), are having marital problems and her older brother, Tyler (Eddy Maday), is wrestling with behavioral and attitude issues. It’s unclear what’s really going on with everybody, but then that’s where the problem lies with this largely unfocused snooze, one that does little justice to its label as a horror film. For starters, much of it is boring and slow, especially at the outset, taking its own sweet time to get off the ground (almost half of the movie in fact). Then there’s the lame and often-cryptic dialogue, which fails miserably at encouraging viewer engagement or moving the narrative along. And, perhaps most egregiously, the picture drops the ball when it comes to what movies in this genre are supposed to do – provide the audience with good frights. In fact, there’s precious little in this film that can be considered “scary”; it’s more suspenseful, if anything, but even that is significantly watered down. Finally, when “the big reveal” comes, it’s not so much frightful as it is implausible and of questionable taste – wholly inappropriate for and not particularly in the spirit of what should constitute a good haunted house story. The result is a huge cinematic disappointment, one that makes viewers wonder what the point of it all is supposed to be. Admittedly, the film features some intriguing camera work, but it ultimately does little to shed meaningful light on the narrative, particularly in “depicting” the mysterious presence responsible for all of the supernatural goings-on and its relevance to the characters or the intent behind this story. I must confess to being somewhat baffled by the filmmaker’s involvement in this project as its quality is a far cry from that of most of his previous efforts. Even more so, though, “Presence” does little to move the needle in bolstering the reputation of a genre looking to make a better name for itself. I’ve seen scarier and more compelling TV commercials than this woefully anemic offering, and, because of that, it’s done little to change my opinion of movies of this ilk.

A family move into a new home - now I did like the meandering corridors and design of this spacious plot, but quickly we discover that it's a paper thin façade for four people who are struggling to get over a trauma. Nope, nothing new so far and, indeed nothing new to come either as daughter "Chloe" (Callina Lang) falls for the rakish "Ryan" (West Mulholland) who is the new best friend of her hunky, charm free and brain dead brother "Tyler" (Eddy Maday). Pretty swiftly, they are at it but simultaneously she starts to feel that she is being watched. Things move about on their own, her brother's room gets trashed and even the woman they bring in to do the "Madame Arcati" thing thinks something isn't right with the place and it's old silver nitrate mirror. Next thing... Well you'll have to watch it and see, but for me the opening couple of minutes of hand-held POV photography really put me off - especially it's use of the fish-eye, scene-stretching, lenses which people don't actually possess. It made me feel slightly seasick and I couldn't decide if it was a drone cam or a very sure-footed person gliding silently about the place giving us a repetitive third party perspective into the family's lives. Mum (Lucy Liu) rarely puts her laptop down; dad (Chris Sullivan) sort of lumbers around rudderless; the brother is a bit of an attention seeking idiot and finally, the daughter is a moody and uninteresting teenager trying to deal with some baggage about which we learn more, later. The parents come across as a couple who would never in a million years have chosen each other in the first place. At least the production doesn't try to hoodwink us with repetitive visual effects, but what we are left with here is a dialogue heavy story that ends all too abruptly as if the short story it's adapted from just ran out of ideas. Disappointing, sorry.