Presence (2024)

While he has tried his hand at a wide variety of movies throughout his career, there was something that made me roll my eyes and say “of course he would do that” when I heard that Steven Soderbergh was directing a haunted house movie that was apparently presented from the POV of the spirit.

A family move in to a house. Some things start to move around, and some sensations are felt by the new occupants. Other things start to happen, complications in their lives and moments that create more danger for people, which makes it only a matter of time until we find out whether the presence is a friend or foe.

There is a screenplay here, and it’s one written by David Koepp, but you could be forgiven that this was an improv exercise used by Soderbergh to firm up an idea that would later be more fully developed. The biggest problem here is that it feels incomplete, it’s a schematic drawing that needs detail and colour added. None of the characters are interesting enough, the plotting is too little stretched too far, and it all leads to a finale that feels like some kind of parody of the genre. Maybe it is, and maybe that is what drew Soderbergh to the project, but it feels like a bit of a slap in the face to those not looking for the filmic equivalent of a shaggy dog story with a weak punchline.

Callina Liang and Eddy Maday are the teens at the heart of the story, Lucy Liu and Chris Sullivan are the parents, and there are roles for West Mulholland, Julia Fox, and Natalie Woolams-Torres, but they’re all asked to do little more than wander around the scenery until the gimmick is focused on them. There is no way to properly judge the performances that seem designed to simply fill the time in between specific camera moves.

No scares, no tension, not even any drama to feel invested in, Presence is a big bundle of nothing. It’s the kind of thing I would expect to come from a first-time director with misplaced confidence in his own skillset. The fact that it is helmed by Soderbergh is astonishing. He has made other movies that I haven’t liked, but I have always been able to appreciate his intentions. Not this time though. This time around it feels as if he has tried his hand at something he views as being a bit beneath him.

3/10

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Broadcast Signal Intrusion (2021)

Director Jacob Gentry has done some decent little movies throughout his career, including The Signal (2007) and, from what I have heard about it, My Super Psycho Sweet 16. Broadcast Signal Intrusion, based on a short film by the writers, Phil Drinkwater and Tim Woodall, could have been another one. It's a shame that, for want of a better phrase, it completely shits the bed in the second half.

Harry Shum Jr. plays James, a video archivist who stumbles across an eerie broadcast signal intrusion (aka a fleeting pirate broadcast that broke into the planned viewing schedule) and starts on a journey to find out more about it, which leads to him discovering some other intrusions, all in a similarly unnerving style. The original air dates coincide with the disappearances of various women, including James's missing wife. Will James find a satisfying answer within the videotapes that he examines over and over again, or will it lead him to a very dangerous, possibly fatal, destination?

Things build nicely here, and in a way you probably expect throughout the first half of the movie. The footage caught on tape is strange and unnerving, James meets a couple of different characters who can help him find a trail of breadcrumbs, and there's a feeling that things won't lead to a happy resolution. There's that added layer of romanticism and magic attached to the analogue format that helps to give this a strong sense of atmosphere throughout. And then it all starts to go wrong, from extra characters who don't really feel as if they add enough to the story (Alice, played by Kelley Mack) to scenes that feel like so much padding before a major discovery is made, it's clear that Broadcast Signal Intrusion may have been best left as a short.

Gentry doesn't do a bad job in directing the material. The shots all have a dark and dingy hue to them, but nothing is so dark that you cannot see what's going on. The big hurdle is the script, with Drinkwater and Woodall unable to do enough to keep things interesting or satisfying enough as the plot unfurls. This should be a languid serpent, with the fangs visible at the very last minute, when it's too late to back away from the coming bit. Instead, it's just some fake scare from a bit of material that only looked dangerous at the start, but soon showed itself for what it was.

Another problem, unfortunately, is the casting. Shum Jr. and Mack aren't good enough in their roles to carry viewers easily through some of the weaker moments. I have enjoyed both of them in other movies, perhaps because they were in supporting roles then, but they're certainly not doing their best work here. The better turns come from people given less screentime, such as Michael B. Woods (especially good), Steve Pringle, and Justin Welborn, which makes you wish they had been the focus in a few more scenes.

I can see why a lot of people like this. It has a style, created through both the visuals and the audio work, that complements the idea of a deep dive into a world of videotapes. And it has some impressively creepy moments here and there. It just ultimately leads nowhere interesting, presenting a third act so weak that it undermines the rest of the film. Nostalgia for the VHS era alone is not enough to make up for how widely this ends up missing the mark.

If I had bought this on video cassette, I would have enjoyed one viewing . . . and then taped over the gap that meant I could record over it.

4/10

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Morgan (2016)

There's an incident at an isolated lab involving a young girl attacking a woman. That is how Morgan opens. Kate Mara is sent in to appraise and deal with the situation, and within another scene or two the viewers are told that the young girl isn't a young girl. She is a creation. An it. A corporate asset. It's just up to Mara to decide whether it is still a valuable asset or a mistake that should be erased.

Morgan is the feature directorial debut from Luke Scott, the son of a slightly well-known British director named Ridley. It's also the biggest project so far for writer Seth W. Owen. Unfortunately, nothing here gives an indication of a bright future for either one of them. This film is a mess, and often a dull mess (which is hard to get just right). It's almost as if it doesn't know what it wants to do, spending a lot of the first half examining identity and humanity before setting up a third act that brings in some action, a lot of implausible character behaviour, and a couple of twists that are remarkably unsurprising.

Things aren't too bad if we're looking at the whole thing on a purely technical level. The visuals, though drab, are decent and a couple of set-pieces work well enough to make you wish that there were some more scattered throughout.

The major flaws stem from the script, which wouldn't be too bad if it didn't also lead to a complete waste of some great talent. Jennifer Jason Leigh is in this movie, but you might not notice her as she delivers about three lines of dialogue. Michelle Yeoh gets a bit more screentime, but not enough to warrant her presence. Paul Giamatti manages to steal the show with one of the best scenes in the film, Toby Jones is sorely underused, Mara looks stern throughout, and Rose Leslie suffers through the whole thing as a character written without any obvious braincells in working order. She tries her best but the script gives her nothing but one dumb moment after another.

There are other people involved, but they just don't make enough of an impression, despite trying hard (Michael Yare probably does the best out of the supporting roster), or they are just on hand to provide a very brief cameo (Brian Cox).

So you get attempts to explore ideas that end up leading nowhere, some flashes of decent violent action, a lot of wasted cast members and unmemorable characters, and an ending that is supposed to make up for the preceding 90 minutes of tedium (although, trust me, it doesn't). Not recommended. At all.

3/10

Morgan is available to buy here.
And if you're in the USofA you can buy it here.