Presence | Film Review

 

After moving into a new home with her family, Chloe (Callina Liang) soon begins to feel a mysterious presence.

I knew nothing about this film beyond 'family gets haunted', but I was interested due to that alone. Haunting movies always have great potential, so I was looking forward to this.

I liked this film, but it definitely wasn't what I thought it was going to be!

For a start, the camera work. Without going into it too much, the film is created and shot in a really original way, putting the audience into a position that we rarely get to be in, and that was really fun.

The most powerful themes of the film, grief, parenthood and childhood, are explored through a unique lens, partly down to the way everything is shot. I did feel like some of these could have been explored in more depth, but they were still interesting to see.

The family dynamics feel so real that some scenes are almost hard to watch. These actors work so well together, to the point where you truly believe they are a family. They all play their roles really well and completely draw the audience in.

It moved really slowly. For a lot of the film you're trying to work out what's going on, and ultimately it feels like nothing will happen. So when things finally get exciting in the last 15 minutes, while you are still engaged, your interest has waned slightly because it took so long for things to get to this point.

And let's go into that last 15 minutes - it was a unique way to go, but I didn't love the turn it took. Taking the story from a family drama about parent and child relationships with a presence hovering over them, while not always exciting, was very engaging. Turning this on its head at the end to then be a story about something entirely different didn't really work for me. I still enjoyed it, but I wouldn't have chosen for that to be the meaning behind the presence.

I also didn't like the way everything was ended and wrapped up. As stated, they explored a lot of interesting themes with a ghost backdrop, and I would have liked to see more of this in the way everything ended.

Overall, I thought this film was gripping, unique and engaging, but I didn't love the way things changed in the lead-up to the ending.

6.5/10