Movies
‘Night Swim’ – Watch the Original Short That Inspired the High Concept Horror Movie
The high concept supernatural thriller Night Swim is out in theaters now, plunging a family into an aquatic nightmare thanks to a haunted swimming pool. It also happens to be based on a 2014 short film of the same name by Rod Blackhurst and Bryce McGuire, and you can watch it right now.
When speaking with McGuire ahead of Night Swim‘s theatrical release, the filmmaker said of the short’s inspiration, “The short was really just Rod Blackhurst and I hanging out in a pool one night and being like, ‘Remember when you were a kid, and you got freaked out because you couldn’t see the bottom anymore?’ And you thought that something was beneath you. It was like, ‘Yeah, I still feel that.’ Then, ‘Let’s see if we can capture that in a short amount of time, in a short format.’”
The 2014 short stars Megalyn Echikunwoke (Emily the Criminal, “Damien”) as Eve, a woman who finds herself stalked by a dark presence when she decides to take a leisurely night swim.
Clocking in at just under four minutes, the short film cuts right to the terror. No mythology, no narrative, or explanations; just pure aquatic scares. Watch below.
Writer/Director Bryce McGuire’s feature expansion stars Wyatt Russell (Overlord, “Monarch: Legacy of Monsters”) as Ray Waller, a former major league baseball player forced into early retirement by a degenerative illness, who moves into a new home with his concerned wife Eve (Oscar® nominee Kerry Condon, The Banshees of Inisherin), teenage daughter Izzy (Amélie Hoeferle, The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes) and young son Elliot (Gavin Warren, Fear the Walking Dead).
Secretly hoping, against the odds, to return to pro ball, Ray persuades Eve that the new home’s shimmering backyard swimming pool will be fun for the kids and provide physical therapy for him. But a dark secret in the home’s past will unleash a malevolent force that will drag the family under, into the depths of inescapable terror.
Night Swim is written and directed by Bryce McGuire (writer of the upcoming film Baghead) and is produced by James Wan, the filmmaker behind the Saw, Insidious and The Conjuring franchises, and Jason Blum, the producer of the Halloween films, The Black Phone and The Invisible Man. The film is executive produced by Michael Clear and Judson Scott for Wan’s Atomic Monster and by Ryan Turek for Blum’s Blumhouse.
NEON has been absolutely slaying the marketing game for their horror output this year, and they’re kicking the Longlegs campaign into high gear with one more month until release.
A cryptic ad in The Seattle Times today (seen below) has led clever horror fans to discover TheBirthdayMurders.net, the brand new official viral marketing website for Longlegs.
The in-universe website details the victims of the serial killer known as Longlegs (Nicolas Cage), described as a “Satan-worshipping psycho” who has terrorized families throughout the Pacific Northwest for nearly three decades.
The website details, “A bloody trail of bodies here in the great state of Oregon attests to the depraved savagery of this one-of-a-kind serial killer. With over three dozen victims that we know of, LONGLEGS is one of the most prolific mass murderers ever to have graced the region, and his gruesome endeavors are the stuff of nightmares. At first, all of the killings appeared to be straightforward murder-suicides: the handiwork of average men who suddenly snapped and slaughtered their wives and children. But a series of eerie coded messages left at the crime scenes indicate that someone – or something – is influencing these horrific crimes. The cryptic letters are signed by someone calling himself LONGLEGS.”
“With thirty-eight kills to his name, LONGLEGS has torn apart the lives of eleven different families throughout the Beaver State. His victims were good people: honest fathers, decent mothers, innocent little children.”
The website is loaded with secrets, clues, and gruesome (faux) crime scene photos, and you might even find a mention of yours truly nestled in there. Poke around. Stay a while.
Longlegs arrives in theaters July 12.
The upcoming serial killer horror movie marks the return of director Osgood Perkins (The Blackcoat’s Daughter, Gretel & Hansel). Nicolas Cage stars alongside Maika Monroe, with Monroe playing an FBI agent and Cage playing a serial killer.
In the film, “FBI Agent Lee Harker (Monroe) is a gifted new recruit assigned to the unsolved case of an elusive serial killer (Cage). As the case takes complex turns, unearthing evidence of the occult, Harker discovers a personal connection to the merciless killer and must race against time to stop him before he claims the lives of another innocent family.
The film is rated “R” for “Bloody violence, disturbing images and some language.”
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