Presence (2024)

Steven Soderbergh made a haunted house movie where you are the ghost, and for a while that trick does all the heavy lifting. The camera roams the house in long takes like a nosy houseguest, watching the Paynes settle in: Lucy Liu’s Rebekah, who clearly favors her swimmer son Tyler, Chris Sullivan’s worried dad Chris, and Chloe, played by Callina Liang, who is still grieving a friend and is the only one who senses something sharing the house. The catch: take away the camera gimmick and the story is a fairly ordinary family drama with a twist you might call early. It’s 84 minutes and still feels a little thin. Critics adored it, while regular moviegoers gave it a C+ CinemaScore, which tracks if you showed up for jump scares. It made $11.1 million worldwide on a reported $2M. A 6.6 because the filmmaking is clever and the scares barely whisper. $268.86 says you drift through your own living room tonight like the camera, slowly, and creep yourself out.

What works: The first-person camera is a clever, eerie trick, and the family drama is tense enough to hold the short runtime.

What doesn’t: Without the camera gimmick the story is pretty ordinary, and anyone expecting real scares will find it far too quiet.

Who it’s for: Film nerds who love a formal experiment, and horror fans who prefer slow dread over jump scares.