Funereal Plots

Horror Cinema reviews

Matthew M. Bartlett

Presence

Writer: David Koepp

Director: Steven Soderbergh

Something roams restlessly and relentlessly through an empty house. Up and down stairs, hall to hall, room to room. A realtor shows the house to a family as the titular presence watches. Painters come in to work. One refuses to enter a particular room, to the bafflement of the others.

We meet the family who has purchased the house. The mother, Rebekah Paine (Lucy Liu), speaks on the phone—we get the idea that she’s been involved in some kind of financial impropriety. The son, Tyler (Eddie Maday) , is an arrogant overachiever. The daughter, Chloe (Callina Liang) is troubled by the recent suicides of young women, one of them her friend. Chris (Christopher Sullivan), the beleaguered husband and father, simply tries to hold it together.

The presence watches too, as the audience learns these things, sees the slowly escalating tensions. Sometimes it closes doors. Sometimes it moves books around. It spills drinks. Chloe is the first to sense the presence—she thinks it may be that of her dead friend Nadia. A psychic is brought in, who suggests the presence exists separate from time, and may be confused. Later, she calls out to Chris, voicing a suspicion—a transparent but not terribly obtrusive bit of foreshadowing.

We are introduced to Ryan, a (somewhat shady) friend of Tyler’s, who seems to take an interest in Chloe, and her in him, tentatively. When they start to get close, a closet shelf collapses. When we learn something unpleasant about Tyler’s actions, his bedroom explodes into Poltergeist-level supernatural chaos.

As revelations occur—phone calls, suspicions actions on behalf of some of the characters—we begin to learn more about Ryan’s intentions, about Chloe’s vulnerabilities. Everything comes to a head and the presence makes itself known.

I’m being deliberately vague, as to avoid spoilers—suffice it to say that Presence, while on its surface a rote haunted house story, it becomes much more than that as it proceeds, thanks to deft, unblinking direction by Soderbergh (a director reliable in terms of quality, a master of tone) and a no-frills, taut screenplay by the ubiquitous Koepp. It’s unique in that the entire movie is viewed from the presence’s point of view…or at least I think it is.

Presence is worth your time. It’s engaging, even riveting—buoyed not only by the writing and direction, but by the performances, particularly those of the young actors. And the ending is brilliant.