If you go into Presence thinking it’s going to be the same old horror movie, you’d be wrong. It still starts out with a family moving into a new house where the family slowly realizes something sinister might also be there, but there’s so much more to it than that. 

Steven Soderbergh turns the genre on its head by making the camera the “ghost”. This method of storytelling adds so much to the intrigue by taking away the audience’s full grasp on what is really happening. Characters will be heard in the middle of sentences, just as a soul floating through a house would experience and that leaves you wanting more. Using the camera as an invisible character makes for unique close ups and long takes that make things more personal. 

The most important part of this movie are the characters themselves. Lucy Lui is the biggest name in this film, yet she’s the least utilized inside and out. Callina Liang plays our main focus as Chole, who brings an important display of grief and the many ways someone might deal with it. I can’t go any further without mentioning the real star of this movie, Chris Sullivan. Chris plays the dad and he’s the most likeable person I have seen in a film in a long while. I loved what this movie was saying for each of the characters. 

This film is advertised as “The scariest movie you’ll see this year”, that’s far from the truth. It’s got suspense and drama, but never for the reasons you’d expect. Living in the POV of a ghost for 90 minutes makes you realize the scariest thing about this house isn’t the ghost. 

Presence is an innovative story that shows movies like Paranormal Activity can be turned into something much deeper. Once you grasp what is really going on is where you notice you haven’t taken a breath in several minutes. 

8/10