There’s a moment in Presence (2024) when the camera—the eyes of a poltergeist—drifts into the dining room and just hovers there. No sudden movement. No jump scare. Just the awful weight of being, unseen, as a family begins to fall apart. That’s Steven Soderbergh’s and David Koepp’s idea of horror: not what’s lurking under the bed, but what’s sitting silently across the dinner table.
The conceit is elegant and simple: the entire film is told from the perspective of a ghost. We see what it sees. We float where it floats. There are no reverse shots, no clarifying cuts. This formal constraint becomes the film’s most powerful tool. It’s not just a gimmick. It’s the thesis.
Written by David Koepp (who also wrote Panic Room, another real estate-driven thriller, along with what are likely many of your favorite movies), Presence follows a family moving into an old home with a drafty past and, of course, one lingering occupant. It’s the setup to every haunted house story in history. There’s the mother (Lucy Liu), who’s insistent on this house because of the top-tier swimming program at the school. Her kids (Callina Liang and Eddy Maday) are quieter, more sensitive, and already sensing something is off. The daughter recently lost a friend and her older brother is mainly focused on fitting in and getting better at swimming. The father does his best to hold everyone together as the film introduces issues in their lives that may or may not explain their visitor.
There are other ways that Soderbergh strays from a traditional horror film. There are no loud violins or visual shock tactics. Instead, he uses the ghost’s perspective to expose the natural rhythms of domestic life: whispered arguments, distracted glances, and moments of vulnerability that people think are private. I’m certain many people watched this expecting horror and, after seeing it, wouldn’t deign to apply the genre. Do not let the trailer fool you: this movie is not “scary” in the typical horror sense. I have no idea who they got for the blurbs saying things like “The scariest thing I’ve seen all year.” It’s not, it’s more than that.
There are definite echoes of Paranormal Activity (2007) here, (movies need to sell at the end of the day) if that franchise had traded in its night-vision cams and demon lore for something more intimate and elliptical. You can also feel the influence of Chantal Akerman’s Jeanne Dielman (1975), in how the monotony of domestic life becomes its own kind of suspense. But Presence also recalls the eerie quietude of The Others (2001)or the formal gamesmanship of The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (2007), where a restricted POV becomes a window into isolation.
Soderbergh, as always, seems both completely in control and a little bit mischievous. He’s working fast and loose—small budget, short shoot, a cast that probably wrapped in under two weeks—and yet the result feels precise. The ending of the film is the reason I would so highly recommend it: something happens that reframes everything that came before. It’s the kind of sly story and directorial flex that reminds you that this guy made The Limey (1999) and Contagion (2011) and Magic Mike (2012) and Ocean’s 11 (2001) and Erin Brokovich (2000) and still somehow finds new ways to surprise you.
I’m at a loss of what more to say for fear of spoiling what was a very memorable and haunting film. To dive into its themes or expert plotting any more would require one very massive spoiler, and I would hate to rob you of the experience of seeing Presence for the first time. It may haunt you.
Presence
Written by David Koepp; Directed by Steven Soderbergh
2024
85 minutes
English
Recommended way to watch (at time of publication): Available to rent on most services
You’ll like this if you like: The Others (2001), Paranormal Activity (2007), Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (1975)