★★

There’s not so much scope for scares in swimming pool horror. Sure enough, the Duffer Brothers more or less maxed out the potential with the upside-downing of poor Barb in the first series of Stranger Things. The short film upon which Night Swim is based might have predated the ‘Justice for Barb’ movement by two years but essentially proved the same point. Kudos then to Bryce McGuire – one half of the original directing duo, with Rod Blackhurst – for his efforts in attempting to extend the mileage. Stick to what you know and all that. Come the closing credits, it’s not entirely clear it worth the bother but at least the definitive proof is finally out there.

Night Swim is every bit the standard of horror one expects from a January release schedule. We’ve had the Christmas biggies and the premium fare should filter through from the circuits come February. Here is the month of shlock. Easy digest jump scares for a tummy full of richer flavours. McGuire opens in 1992 – don’t they all? – with a tasty pre-titles drowning. Flash forward to the present day and a dysfunctional family are about to buy the same house, thrilled with the opportunity of the same pool. If only someone would warn them that the water has teeth in this slice of suburbia.

Fresh from her Inisherin Oscar nod last year, Kerry Condon feels rather underused here as mother of two, Eve Waller. Her husband, a former baseball champ whose masculinity is challenged by a diagnosis of progressive stage two MS, is played by Wyatt Russell. Naturally, their kids are a troubled lad (Gavin Warren) and his cooler, more assured elder sister (Amélie Hoeferle). If you’ve yet to see The Shining, here’s your cashing out point. You’ve catching up to do. What starts as hallucination and grabby demons soon descends into a mire of possession and obsession. McGuire throws all bar the kitchen sink into the damned pool – from creepy girls in drainage vents to tempting boats on the surface – in search of a sense of pace. Eventually, Eve will find herself on a cross-country quest to learn the truth from a former victim of…the pool.

Reasonable that it is to expect the adaptation of a short film to mirror the original narrative, this becomes less forgivable when the feature proves so transparently derivative of other, better genre offerings. Kubrick’s infamous take on the Stephen King hotel is but one of a cool half dozen reference points. Not that the collection presents much tonal unity. Opening in the realms of It and concluding as a pastiche of Ringu was always going to be a tough sell. Night Swim is never nasty enough to justify the lack of fun but far too maudlin to nail the slow burn approach to chills. What’s left is something of a tension vacuum. Everything here is perfectly watchable but you’ll be nestled quite comfortably at the back of your seat rather than hoisted upon its edge.

Derivation cannot, of course, be the film’s sole weakness. What is the Scream franchise if not imitative? That still works. It’s hard, then, to pin down here why the melee flounders. Why the film makes so small a splash. A score from The Witch’s Mark Korven proves suitably creepy, while there’s tremendously aquatic cinematography from Charlie Sarroff. The opening shot’s a real doozie. Perhaps it’s the tonal inconsistency or the lack of a direct focal point when it comes to the threat. Certainly, the film seems confused itself as to whether the pool itself is evil or if something tangible lurks within. Either way, the task of inspiring viewers to consider a suburban swimming pool as a remotely terrifying construct proves insurmountable. None of this would have happened if they’d just used the local lido like the rest of us.

T.S.