Presence

You’ve seen 3-D, you’ve already done D-Box, but now experience the thrills of ghost vision in the high-pedigree indie horror film Presence, directed by Steven Soderbergh from a script by David Koepp. Inside a big, empty house, realtor Cece (Julia Fox) greets Rebekah (Lucy Liu) and her family, who are moving to the suburbs. Rebekah is eager to snap up the house as it is in the school district they were trying to get their kids Tyler (Eddy Maday) and Chloe (Callina Liang) into and talks her husband, Chris (Chris Sullivan), into it. Tyler thrives in his new school, immediately being accepted by popular Ryan (West Mulholland) and the school’s in-crowd.

Things are getting tense for Rebekah and Chris, as she has committed some criminal acts at her work that may come crashing back down on them. Chloe is having a harder time adjusting, as she is still traumatized over the drug overdose death of a close friend. She also sometimes feels like someone is watching her, like an invisible presence in the room is observing her, just like someone watching a movie with her in it…

A still from Presence by Steven Soderbergh, an official selection of the Premieres Program at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival. Courtesy of Sundance Institute.

“…realtor Cece greets Rebekah and her family, who are moving to the suburbs.”

In Presence, the camera is the ghost. The entire movie is from the ghost’s point of view. This isn’t a spoiler, as it is revealed and confirmed in the first five minutes. How awesome is a haunted house movie where the audience haunts the house? Totally. Soderbergh does the whole movie in long takes using a wide-angle steady-cam setup. It is a situation fertile for great acting, as the long shots allow these performers to really inhabit their characters.

The film opens with the camera perspective wandering all around the inside of the empty house, like the exact reverse of what Argento did in Tenebre. The ghost has to move from room to room in order to follow people to hear what they are saying—it can’t just teleport or melt through floors. It cannot leave the house and can only do minor poltergeist actions like moving objects around in the air by themselves. It also cannot be seen, except by certain people who are tuned into the frequency of the dead, far out! This creates an aura around the viewing experience where the camera is not just a character but also the main source of dread.