Movies
‘Presence’ – Watch the Final Trailer for Steven Soderbergh’s Chilling Ghost Story
A family moves into a suburban house and becomes convinced they’re not alone in Steven Soderbergh’s Presence, a horror film that’s uniquely told from the perspective of the ghost.
NEON releases Presence in theaters on January 24, 2025.
Watch the official final trailer for Presence below.
In Presence, “A family moves into a suburban house and becomes convinced they are not alone. A supernatural force has infiltrated the house, and taken a specific interest in the couple’s daughter.”
Meagan Navarro wrote in her review for Bloody Disgusting, “Soderbergh reunites with writer David Koepp (Stir of Echoes) to give an innovative new spin on the quintessential ghost story. From the opening frame until the end credits, audiences see the thrilling story unfold through chilling narrative twists via an experimentation with form and technique. Using the camera’s gaze as the ghost’s observing eyes isn’t the only trick up Soderbergh and Koepp’s sleeves, ensuring this exciting shakeup of the haunted house keeps you guessing.”
“Presence gives a contemporary, innovative new spin on the haunted house format that bypasses the well-trodden path to instead create scares of a different nature,” Meagan’s review continues. She goes on to rave in her 4-star review, “Combined with Koepp’s twisty script, Presence pulls you in, terrifies you, then leaves your heart on the floor.”
Lucy Liu, Chris Sullivan, Callina Liang, Julia Fox, Eddy Maday and West Mulholland star.
One of last year’s best horror movies, In a Violent Nature similarly breathed new life into its own subgenre (the slasher) by telling the tale entirely from the perspective of the evil presence stalking a wooded area. Soderbergh’s Presence looks to take the same approach to the classic haunted house tale, and may very well end up being one of this year’s best horror films.
It makes you wonder… what other subgenres could use a total shift in perspective?
Before updating the video nasty Faces of Death, director Daniel Goldhaber and writer Isa Mazzei explored the dangers of online life in tech-thriller Cam, their feature debut that was acquired by Netflix in 2018 after making waves on the festival circuit.
At the end of last year, the Netflix exclusive quietly departed from the streaming platform, left without another streaming home.
It’s not an isolated story; Mike Flanagan’s Hush also left streaming entirely for a period until it was finally picked up on both physical media and other streaming services.
While the tech-thriller currently isn’t available to watch on Netflix, Tubi, Hulu, or any other platforms, that’s not a problem for Cam thanks to a very cool move by Goldhaber: the director has made his breakout film accessible to watch online for free via his website.
As his site notes: “CAM is unfortunately not currently available to view on any platforms, so you can watch it here if you like :).“
No subscriptions or fees necessary, just hit play.
Cam follows Alice (Madeline Brewer), who works as an online cam girl obsessed with her ranking on the cam site. The higher her ranking goes, the more it draws unwanted attention, and Alice soon finds herself replaced on her own show with a doppelganger.
Written by Mazzei, a former camgirl, it uses the horror thriller premise to examine the life of a sex worker; Alice’s career ambition is directly at odds with the shame it brings to her family, and how she tries to spare them from it by keeping them in the dark. It only compounds her danger when the doppelganger enters the equation in Goldhaber’s engaging thriller.
For a deep dive into the treacherous world of Cam, listen to Horror Queers’ episode on it now.
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