PRESENCE: The Most Radical Horror Movie of the Last Few Years

Where do we go when we die? Do we even "go" somewhere? Are we even something when we stop breathing? These are questions that have been catching me off guard for a while now and that we practically have been asking ourselves since we exist as a species. If I think about the most recent film in the "haunted house" subgenre that stands out the most from other films, A Ghost Story immediately rings a bell. With this in mind, veteran Steven Soderbergh thought about conducting a pretty interesting audiovisual experiment that may pave a new path in the way we watch cinema, more precisely, in relation to camera work. Experimenting isn't new for the acclaimed 62-year-old director since his filmography can be considered a constant search for artistic reinvention. The director dealt with almost all genres, subgenres, budgets and even narrative and aesthetic styles. For 25 years now, he has been releasing one movie annually, as if he wanted to learn more than what he already knows. And it isn't going badly for him at all.

From the very first second of Presence, his new suspense/horror/minimalist project, it can be felt we are witnessing something we have probably never seen before. The hand-held camera shyly follows how the new residents of a beautiful New Jersey house settle down while apparently listening to each of them and their stories. But the camera does so from inside the house, it never gets out. Soon, we realize that Chloe, the youngest daughter of the family, senses there's something else among them when she observes an old nitrate mirror, doing so only when the camera approaches to her. The recent loss of her best friend, Nadia, makes her vulnerable, but doesn't confine her mentally: this is Soderbergh's way to tell us that maybe we are the protagonists. But are we the "presence" or is there something much more simultaneously complex and simple in this interesting mise-en-scène?

The answer is easy to digest at first, but hard to assimilate at the end: the camera is a ghost. We are watching everything from the perspective of something invisible to the human eye but visible to the soul. From this understanding of the proposal, the narrative flows from this "presence's" conscience—do ghosts have one?—and how it understands it must act. The idea itself is simply radical in comparison to everything that already exists in the genre, but its execution has setbacks. For a movie with a pretty tight budget, Presence may feel repetitive and lifeless. Ultimately, it's nothing more than the story of a dysfunctional family that moves to a new house to try to repair the bond between them and, along the way, grow together.

The only thing that makes the movie truly captivating is the mystery around this ghost's identity. Who is it? What does it want? What are its intentions? Is it the ghost of a person who lived there? Is it Nadia's ghost? We soon meet Tyler, the older son spoiled by the mother; Rebekah, the mother who seems distant from everyone except for "mommy's boy" who must be successful; and Chris, the counterpart of this last relationship and the only one who believes what Chloe is seeing inside the house. Once all family members have been presented—who, by the way, aren't developed through traditional methods; let's consider this experience a found-footage seen through the eyes of someone who can't participate like a cameraman would—Tyler introduces Ryan, the typical blonde, blue-eyed high school teenager that exudes charm but also common sense. A classic story archetype presented within a structure that is anything but classic. Soderbergh lights the lamp.

Presence doesn't intend to cause tension nor fear. It's a radical proposal in which the concept remains solid throughout its 120-minute runtime while its narrative seems to condense gradually due to the lack of shock, something that toys with our patience until we are worn to a frazzle. Nonetheless, the shock is there. Most importantly, we are shrouded in the mystery of knowing there's something among us, even though we may never find an answer to what it is. And that, my dear readers, can be more frightening than anything else.

Posted on MARCH 22, 2025, 13:45 PM | UTC-GMT -3

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