A backyard swimming pool.
A symbol of youth, status and wish-fulfillment, quintessentially American yet universal in its shimmering appeal. A life-enhancing luxury to those who can afford the cost, an absolute necessity for those poor souls who live in the most hellishly hot of places. A heavenly playground for people of any age, a devilish hazard for those tempted by its cool, sky-blue waters yet who lack the ability to tread its deepest, darkest parts.
Especially at night.
Based on his own acclaimed 2014 short film, Night Swim high dives into the deep end of horror as it takes the most banal pleasure of suburban life and transforms it into a wellspring of demonic evil in a movie that combines the style, impishness and wicked world-building that audiences have come to expect from horror film powerhouses Jason Blum and James Wan, with the eerie vibes and emotional resonance of classic eighties-era chillers like Poltergeist and Pet Sematary.
As the film floats into theatres across the globe this week, Peter Gray spoke with a collective of the creatives involved in bringing this thriller to life, including writer/director Bryce McGuire, who spoke about expanding his short to feature length and if he'd personally survive the rules he has put into play.
A symbol of youth, status and wish-fulfillment, quintessentially American yet universal in its shimmering appeal. A life-enhancing luxury to those who can afford the cost, an absolute necessity for those poor souls who live in the most hellishly hot of places. A heavenly playground for people of any age, a devilish hazard for those tempted by its cool, sky-blue waters yet who lack the ability to tread its deepest, darkest parts.
Especially at night.
Based on his own acclaimed 2014 short film, Night Swim high dives into the deep end of horror as it takes the most banal pleasure of suburban life and transforms it into a wellspring of demonic evil in a movie that combines the style, impishness and wicked world-building that audiences have come to expect from horror film powerhouses Jason Blum and James Wan, with the eerie vibes and emotional resonance of classic eighties-era chillers like Poltergeist and Pet Sematary.
As the film floats into theatres across the globe this week, Peter Gray spoke with a collective of the creatives involved in bringing this thriller to life, including writer/director Bryce McGuire, who spoke about expanding his short to feature length and if he'd personally survive the rules he has put into play.
Category
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Short filmTranscript
00:00 - Thank you. Peter Gray from the AU Review in Australia. Hello, Bryce.
00:08 - Hey, what's up, man?
00:10 - Hello. I'll say congratulations on the film, first of all. Looking at your background,
00:17 like in writing and directing, obviously, short films predominantly, was there anything
00:23 specific about Night Swim that was like, "This is the one that I want to expand to a feature"?
00:30 - No, that's just the one that got expanded to a feature, homie. You keep making short
00:37 films because you hope that one of them gets across that impossible gauntlet of turning
00:40 into a feature with James Wan and Jason Blum and Universal Studios. And you're lucky.
00:44 - Very true, yeah.
00:45 - And then the strongest species survive, right? So you just keep, you have to keep
00:51 making stuff, keep making stuff, keep making stuff, get better at your job, get better
00:54 at your job. But then ultimately, it's the idea that wants to get made is the one that's
00:58 going to get made if you have enough persistence and patience to let that run its course. But
01:05 there was not like, "Oh yeah, The Whistler." Like, "No, no, no. No, not that one." It's
01:11 just that Night Swim was the idea that had a gravitational pull to it, and it brought
01:17 in the people that saw the potential of the concept and was excited by it the way that
01:23 I was excited by it, which was James Wan was the first person in that saw the show and
01:28 was like, "Fuck yeah, let's go. Let's do this."
01:31 - Yeah. Because I imagine a lot of people just assume that it's just about adding extra
01:38 content in. But obviously, do you sort of almost have to go to just the absolute base
01:46 level and then build the story back up?
01:48 - Yeah, for sure. Because there's no story in the short film. It's not, right? It's a
01:53 woman in a pool and she goes missing. There's a scary pool, and then there's an atmosphere,
02:01 and there's an environment, but there's no story. I literally had to completely throw
02:07 all of that away. I mean, what is this pool? What can it do? What does it want? Who are
02:14 the people that need it? What can it give them? What can it take from them? You've got
02:19 to ask all those big questions. I think I always feel like premise and character have
02:28 to be completely connected. Who are the characters that are going to go through the gauntlet
02:35 of this premise, which is a pool that can give and take and can do certain things to
02:41 them? And so who are the characters? Who's the family that can gain the most, that need
02:46 it the most badly? And then how is it going to test their loyalties and test what they
02:53 want and test where they find meaning and find happiness and what they're willing to
02:57 sacrifice and all of those things? But yeah, it just was kind of being like, "All right,
03:01 I've got this concept of the pool. Who are the characters that are going to change the
03:05 most and grow the most and be tormented the most by going through this concept?"
03:10 Yeah. No, I loved the lore that was created in this. And then one of the other things
03:16 I liked was Kerry Condon's character, Eve, she was smart. She was smart enough to start
03:21 leaving when shit hit the fan. But obviously she can't through circumstances, but the intent
03:28 is there. And I was wondering if this was happening to you, would you personally investigate
03:33 further or would you just be like, "I'm out. I see white people die in the movies all the
03:37 time. I'm done." I don't know. These white people really have
03:42 it coming. They just, they should know better. No, I think, yeah, it is interesting. If a
03:52 kid comes to you and says, "I saw this thing in the pool. I tried to grab me." It's hard
03:57 to know what to do with that because if you go out there and look and there's nothing
04:00 there and you have a younger and imaginative kid, like I have a kid, and I would really
04:07 want to take them seriously and I would investigate that. But at a certain point, do you really
04:12 move your whole family from a house because your youngest child said they saw something
04:18 and you have no other evidence to confirm that? Yeah.
04:22 And it's like, that's, I mean, especially for this family, think about that. All they've
04:26 done is move, move, move, move, move. And finally there's someone with the stability.
04:30 And I think there's an aspect of like, Carrie, Eve's character is definitely not stupid at
04:36 all, but there is this element of like, you just don't want to believe some bullshit like
04:42 that because of the implications for what it means for your family. People are going
04:47 to resist accepting that for as long as they can. And then at a certain point, she's like,
04:52 there's something wrong with the pool. We're getting out of here. And as you said, the
04:55 pool has more up its sleeve. It has more powers than we realize. But yeah, I don't know. I
05:03 think I would do what she's doing. I think I'd be like, I got to go talk to someone.
05:07 I got to go investigate. I got to figure out what else went on here. And as soon as I know
05:11 that I'm trying to leave and you just hope it's not too late.
05:15 Yeah. Well, I feel like if white people were doing smart things, we wouldn't have all the
05:18 horror movies we do. So I just think keep them doing what they're doing. But yeah, no,
05:25 thank you so much for taking time out. I was like, I'm such a fan of the genre. So I'm
05:28 very excited to see what you come up with next. So thank you so much.
05:32 Awesome, man. I appreciate that. Thank you.
05:34 Thank you.