Movie Reviews

Movie Review: Empty House, Empty Scares, Soderbergh’s “Presence” Haunts Without Horror

A family becomes convinced they are not alone after moving into their new home in the suburbs.

The 2024 film “Presence,” directed by Steven Soderbergh, takes bold creative risks but struggles to succeed as a supernatural horror film despite BLOODY DISGUSTING’s enthusiastic claims of its heart-stopping terror. This ghost’s-eye-view thriller barely manages to raise goosebumps.

At its core, the story seems promising enough. Chris Sullivan and Lucy Liu play parents Chris and Rebekah, who move into a new house with their teens Chloe and Tyler (portrayed by Callina Liang and Eddy Maday). They soon find themselves sharing space with an invisible entity. The plot touches on standard family drama—parents growing apart, teenage struggles—while incorporating the mysterious cardiac-related deaths of Chloe’s two friends.

The story picks up when Chloe becomes aware of the supernatural presence, believing it to be one of her departed friends trying to stay connected. This otherworldly observer shows a protective streak, particularly evident when Chloe faces danger from her brother’s friend Ryan (West Mulholland), who orchestrates a sinister plot at an unsupervised gathering.

Yet the film’s unique perspective—maintaining the ghost’s viewpoint throughout—ironically becomes its biggest weakness. Horror traditionally thrives on the unknown lurking in shadows, but by making the audience embody the supernatural force itself, “Presence” strips away the mystery that makes ghost stories effective, leaving only flat scenes of people reacting to something we already know is there.

Soderbergh has long been known for pushing technical boundaries, from his 1989 debut “Sex, Lies, and Videotape” to his experiments with digital cameras in “Full Frontal” (2002) and his iPhone-shot “Unsane” (2018). But technical innovation can’t carry a film on its own. Even with solid acting and inventive camera work, the movie feels more like watching extended surveillance footage than a gripping supernatural narrative. The constant first-person perspective creates an odd effect, as if a ghostly cameraman is following the family around, their blasé reactions suggesting they’ve grown oddly comfortable with being perpetually filmed.

While this unconventional approach to ghost stories showcases technical skill, it fails to generate the scares or suspense necessary for effective horror. As a result, the film is more of an interesting technical exercise than a successful addition to Soderbergh’s body of work or the horror genre.

In Theaters Friday, January 24th

 

 

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James McDonald

Originally from Dublin, Ireland, James is a Movie Critic with 40 years of experience in the film industry as an Award-Winning Filmmaker. He is also a member of the Critics Choice Association and the Dallas-Fort Worth Film Critics Association.