Rewriting the Haunted House Playbook: Does Presence Deliver?

We’ve all seen it before. A family moves into a new house, and soon afterwards, they realize that the place is haunted. That basic formula has been a staple of horror cinema for about eighty years, but Presence promises something different. Sure, on paper the plot might sound yawn-inducingly familiar, but the film has a twist: it’s shot entirely from the ghost’s perspective. And when I say “entirely,” I mean entirely. From the very first frame to the last, we only experience this story through the intrusive spirit’s eyes, and when I first heard about that unique hook, I was…well, I was hooked. I couldn’t wait to see this novel approach to a time-honored horror trope, so I bought a ticket for opening weekend as soon as I got the chance.

Presence was directed by Steven Soderbergh, and it stars Lucy Liu, Chris Sullivan, Callina Liang, Eddy Maday, and West Mulholland. The film follows a family of four–Rebecca, Chris, and their teenage kids Chloe and Tyler–as they move into a new house. Unbeknownst to them, the place is haunted by a mysterious entity that spends much of its time invisibly watching them, but the titular presence isn’t the only thing these people have to worry about.

Their relationships with each other are falling apart, and Chloe is having a particularly tough time. Her best friend recently died of a drug overdose, and her mother clearly favors her older brother. It’s just a bad situation all around, and in typical haunted house fashion, it’s about to get worse.

Before we get to the real meat of this review, I have to give you a warning. Despite the marketing and the premise, Presence is more of a dreary family drama than a straight up horror movie. Sure, there are a few scenes where the entity engages in cliched ghostly behaviors, like  moving books around or trashing an entire room, but for the most part, this spirit is a silent observer that just watches its living housemates as they go about their daily lives.

Viewers looking for Paranormal Activity-style chills and thrills are going to be sorely disappointed, but if you can accept this film for what it is, I think you’re going to have a great time. For starters, the acting in Presence is excellent. This entire cast is 100% believable, but as usual, there’s a standout who shines a bit brighter than the rest.

Chris Sullivan plays Chris, and his character is the only one who seems to care about Chloe. The guy tries his best to repair the girl’s relationships with her mother and brother, but unfortunately, his efforts prove largely ineffective. To add to Chris’s misery, his relationship with his wife is also pretty shaky, and that devastating one-two punch lays a heavy emotional burden on the man’s shoulders. His life is slowly falling apart, and Sullivan masterfully brings those struggles to life. The pain in his face, voice, and mannerisms is nearly tangible, so you’ll believe that Chris is genuinely being crushed under the weight of his family’s heart-rending self destruction.

Along with the rest of this stellar cast, Sullivan allows you to buy into these characters with no trouble at all, and for a movie like Presence, that’s crucial. See, for most of the film’s runtime, this story just meanders along without any clear direction. Up until the third act, it’s little more than a steady stream of disappointment and domestic dysfunction, so unlike most mainstream movies, this one isn’t really about the plot. Instead, it’s a character-centric meditation on grief, isolation, and trauma, and as I hinted at earlier, those themes primarily revolve around Chloe.


Yes, this whole family is crumbling, but Chloe bears the brunt of their breakdown. The way Rebecca and Tyler treat her and talk about her (both when she’s there and when she’s not) is utterly heartbreaking, and in a somewhat counterintuitive way, that feeling multiplies exponentially when her father stands up for her. His frustration at his wife and son just adds fuel to this emotional fire, so you’ll come to sympathize with the girl after about ten minutes.


And if the story itself doesn’t get you on her side, the film’s unique perspective is sure to do the trick. Like I said before, we experience Presence entirely through the spirit’s eyes, and that novel approach greatly intensifies the movie’s emotional appeal. It makes you feel like you’re actually the ghost that lives in this family’s new house, so when the entity begins to show some purpose, you can’t help but imbibe a bit of that purpose yourself.


As you might be able to guess, the specter quickly takes an interest in Chloe and even protects her from harm a couple of times, and that pretty much seals the deal for us. Presence doesn’t just tell us to sympathize with the girl. It involves us in its heartbreaking story and almost forces us to care about Chloe’s isolation and grief, and the way I see it, the film wants us to take that concern with us when we walk out of the theater and encounter real human beings experiencing similar problems.


The ending hammers that idea home as well, but I obviously can’t get into any specifics about it. I’ll let you find out for yourself how this movie wraps up, but I can say that the final few scenes put a really cool spin on the standard tropes of redemption and unfinished business. They bring the film’s message to life in a stark and surprising way, so when the credits began to roll, I was a happy man. Presence is a great new addition to the haunted house genre, and if you’re a fan of drama horror like me, I highly recommend that you check this movie out.