Night Swim Reviews: The Perfect January Horror Movie!

Blumhouse is giving us the first horror film of the year in the form of Night Swim. Now we all know about the month of January. The first month of the year is rarely good for cinema as no major releases ever come in January. In fact, January has earned itself the status of being the trash month – where Hollywood drops all of its garbage products on us that have no scope of redemption, which are mostly poor horror movies. However, last year Blumhouse flipped this trend as they released M3GAN in the month of January. The Gerard Johnstone directorial was one of the highest rated and highest grossing horror films of the year. The film also turned out to be a social media phenomenon thanks to the unique M3GAN doll. Considering this, I hoped Blumhouse would flip our expectations once again with their January release Night Swim, however, it doesn’t seem to be the case.

Night Swim Reviews Round-Up: One Of The Worst Films Of The Year Already!

Based on the reviews, Night Swim is the perfect January horror movie that we’re all familiar with. A filler movie with an interesting premise but dull screenplay and dumb characters. Despite being only an hour and half, Night Swim feels like a burden to its runtime. The film has debuted with a Rotten Tomatoes score of 35% qualifying it as the first “Rotten” film of the year. Currently, the film stands at 29% from 59 reviews. Blumhouse films have rarely acquired a good Rotten Tomatoes score.

Notably, their highest grossing film ever – Five Nights at Freddy’s also has only 32% on the reviews aggregator platform. Their other films from last year like The Exorcist: Believer and Insidious: The Red Door also have scores of 22% and 37% respectively. Check out the critics reviews below:

Zachary Barnes (Wall Street Journal) – “The movie seems destined to sink quickly to the bottom of our cultural memory and, like a few swimmers in this demented pool, vanish altogether.”

Meagan Navarro (Bloody Disgusting) – “Condon’s fierce yet heartfelt performance and the underwater sequences keep Night Swim treading water, but the high concept novelty wears out its welcome quickly for seasoned horror fans who’ve seen this scenario play out so many times before.” Original Score: 2.5/5

Ben Travis (Empire Magazine) – “Last-act let-down aside, this is a confident and creepy ghoul-in-the-pool horror that makes Bryce McGuire a filmmaker to watch. Wusses, bring armbands.” Original Score: 4/5

Bob Strauss (San Francisco Chronicle) – “The good news is you can bring the kids. When it comes time for swimming lessons next summer, there’s nothing they’ll remember from this that’ll make them afraid of the water.” Original Score: 1/4

Odie Henderson (Boston Globe) – “The worst movie I’ve seen in years.” Original Score: 0.5/4

Tim Grierson (Screen International) – “As the mysteries behind the strange occurrences are slowly revealed, this underpowered horror film starts to drown in cliches and predictable plot twists.”

Robbie Collin {Daily Telegraph (UK)} – “Nothing in Night Swim will change how you feel about horror, or even swimming, but it fulfils its brief with efficiency and style.” Original Score: 3/5

Matthew Monagle (Austin Chronicle) – “It may be damning with faint praise to describe Night Swim as a solid movie, but horror fans know just how dark and deep the bottoms of their genre can be. We’ll take what McGuire has to offer every day of the week.” Original Score: 3/5

Michael Phillips (Chicago Tribune) – “As supernatural thrillers go, “Night Swim” is a quick dip — persuasively acted and quite effective in its first half, scattered and woozy in its second.” Original Score: 2.5/4

William Bibbiani (TheWrap) – “It just never goes far enough with its ridiculousness to reach pure entertainment, and it certainly can’t be taken seriously enough to justify its melodrama.”

Moira MacDonald (Seattle Times) – “I can think of many, many better ways to usher in a new year than the very damp effort that is “Night Swim” — aren’t wet ghosts inherently more sad than scary? — but you play the hand you’re dealt.” Original Score: 1.5/4

Adam Graham (Detroit News) –“”Night Swim” is a numbingly dull horror outing with a cursed script that’s about as scary as a game of Marco Polo.” Original Score: D

Edward Douglas (Above the Line) – “Anyone who wants a fairly quick, breezy film full of genuine scares, Night Swim does a fine job offering just that.” Original Score: B

Alissa Wilkinson (New York Times) – “For a winter horror release — typically a great time to go to the movie theater, munch popcorn and get your pants scared off — it does the job.”

Owen Gleiberman (Variety) – “Restores a certain order to the cinematic universe by being as tepid and unscary as a proper early-in-January movie should be.”

Alonso Duralde (The Film Verdict) – “A silly film well-stocked with silly attributes, yes, but it does sell the idea of a man making a Faustian bargain with a swimming pool.”

Alison Foreman (indieWire) – “It’s fun to talk over and pick apart, but ultimately this feature from a promising decade-old short is little more than a sloppy throwaway horror released in the off-season.” Original Score: C-

Kristy Puchko (Mashable) – “While it has splashes of fun, it’s ultimately a lazy effort that feels totally disposable.”

Matt Donato (Inverse) – “Night Swim epitomizes that phrase “you can do better, you can do worse.” It’s a wade into the shallow end of horror storytelling that achieves over the bare minimum, nervy in short bursts but never utterly terrifying.”

Frank Scheck (Hollywood Reporter) – “Despite the filmmaker’s best efforts to drum up suspense via the usual jump scares, Night Swim turns out to be just as silly as it sounds.”

The film is directed by Bryce McGuire with a screenplay from McGuire and Rod Blackhurst. It is based on the 2014 short film of the same name by the same duo. The official synopsis of the film only mentions, a woman swimming in her pool at night terrorized by an evil spirit. Night Swim stars Wyatt Russell, Kerry Condon, Nancy Lenehan, etc.

Night Swim is releasing in theatres near you today.

If you have any questions regarding Night Swim, feel free to ask in the comments below. For more content, stay tuned. As usual, like, subscribe and share our articles as we here are trying to build a community of people High on Cinema!