phancy.com - horror reviews - MOH 2025

Presence



IMDb Info

Release Year: 2024
Runtime: 1h 24m
Country: USA
Language: English
Genre Tags: Drama, Horror, Thriller
Plot Summary: A family becomes convinced they are not alone after moving into their new home in the suburbs.

Poster - Title Card


phancy.com rating:

phancy.com notes: A lesser movie would throw in jumpscares, but the long, continuous shots have a real personality and fill the movie with more than enough dread. As the inverse of a family drama and/or ghost movie, you are constantly a voyeur, struggling to understand how things are going to inevitably end badly, and feeling utterly helpless to prevent it.


Outside Reviews:

Matt Zoller Seitz
3.5 out of 4 stars - rogerebert.com

As is nearly always the case on his productions, Soderbergh operates the camera himself. In this one he should be considered a performer as well as a filmmaker. He is physically involved in every scene, representing the point-of-view of the spirit, and doing things and looking at things in a plot-driven, character-motivated way, performing alongside (and occasionally interacting with) the rest of the cast. An entire book could be written about the camerawork, which reveals plot information but does it "in character," in a way that will likely deepen the film upon repeat viewings, once the central questions have been answered and only the exposed narrative architecture remains.


Jesse Hassenger
Grade: B+ - Steven Soderbergh cracks another genre with the clever ghost story Presence

The central quartet playing the family all does wonderful work, and in a movie with several talented young performers, frequent stage/TV/character actor Sullivan feels like the belated discovery as the flustered but loving father. The familial relationships that Soderbergh and Koepp set up aren't necessarily wide-ranging or unpredictable, but as Presence ticks toward an inevitable confrontation, they're surprisingly involving. There's a circularity to Presence that is both entirely in keeping with a haunted-house story and, in this telling, even moving. It's yet another genre that Soderbergh has worked like a problem, and produced an elegant solution.