PRESENCE

PRESENCE is one of the latest from director Steven Soderbergh, best known for making the OCEAN’S TRILOGY. This movie is a horror/drama following a random string of supernatural events that occur in a family’s new home, but there’s something different about this movie. Instead of following the family, the movie unfolds from the perspective of the supernatural presence, slowly unraveling the mystery behind itself.

It starts off in an empty home, a realtor rushing into the place. Soon after, a family arrives. There is a father, mother, son, and daughter. The mother is very intent on buying the house, but the father is unsure. The daughter had just recently lost some good friends. She hasn’t been herself lately, and her dad is worried that it may be too soon. That doesn’t concern the mother though, as she instantly walks up to the realtor and makes an offer on the house.

Next thing you know, the family is settled, and things are immediately a bit off. The daughter, Chloe, sits alone in her bed, crying until she can sense the spirit. Chloe is convinced the spirit is her deceased friend, Nadia. The next day when she gets a shower, the spirit closes her textbooks and puts them away. Chloe realizes this after she left the shower and is now fully aware of the weird things happening. Then, things settle down. Chloe’s brother Tyler brings his friend Ryan over. Chloe is intrigued to say the least, since she and Ryan start dating secretly.

Cut to a big argument within the family. The family is split between believing Chloe about there being a spirit and thinking she is crazy. The spirit is only aggravated by Chloe’s brother, Tyler. However, as he continues to taunt the spirit, it seems to grow in rage, climbs the stairs and proceeds to wreck Tyler’s room. The whole family rushes upstairs and bears witness to the phenomenon. There’s no escaping it now. The house is haunted by some kind of spirit or “presence.”

From this point, it’s unclear what the spirit’s motives are. Although the spirit became mad for some reason and physically wrecking Tyler’s room, Chloe and her father are dead set on the spirit not being harmful. In fact, the spirit seems to have some good intentions and is just trying to help. This is shown when someone tries to spike Chloe’s drink. The spirit manages to knock the glass over, spilling the drink onto the floor.

However, it becomes clear Choe is not safe, and the movie casts some doubt as to whether the spirit will be able to protect her for much longer.

PRESENCE is well made technically, but it lacks many qualities of good movies. To start off, the acting is really rough. Some people are so monotone that this horror/drama has a good chance to put you to sleep. That’s not a good quality for this kind of movie. It also doesn’t help that some of the characters actively unappealing. For example, the mother obviously has a favorite child, Tyler. In fact, she favors Tyler so much that she often must be reminded that she has two children and that her least favorite, Chloe, is grieving over the death of her two friends.

Also, the footage was stabilized in post-production, which causes noticeable, off-putting warping in the image. At the same time, every scene ends with a cut to black, which utterly destroys the movie’s pacing.

Thus, PRESENCE is best compared to a freshly painted house that has a rotted structure damaged by termites. There’s something there, but it falls short of what a viewer expects, resulting in a huge disappointment.

Finally, although PRESENCE has an interesting twist at the end and some moral, redemptive content involving protecting Chloe from evil, it has a strong occult worldview where the ghost of a dead person interacts with living people. [SPOILER] At the end, the ghost helps a character solve the plot problem, but the solution involves a tragic event and the revelation of a final twist. Also, some dialogue compares the ghost to an angel, which leads to a confused, unbiblical theology. At one point, the family also consults an occult spiritualist or “medium,” who gives advice about the ghost’s situation that turns out to be correct.

PRESENCE also has lots of strong foul language, teenage substance abuse and a partially depicted sex scene between two teenagers. This content, along with the movie’s strong occultism, results in an abhorrent, unacceptable move. As Moses admonishes the Hebrews in Deuteronomy 18:10-12, “Let no one be found among you. . . who consults the dead. Anyone who does these things is detestable to the LORD.”