Steven Soderbergh’s ‘Presence’ Tells a Clever Haunted House Horror Story From the Ghost’s Point of View

Alci Rengifo

The idea of playing around has defined much of Steven Soderbergh’s career over the past decade. At times, the plots he chooses feel like excuses to experiment freely with everything from narrative to casting and technology. His latest offering, “Presence,” is the director’s first real dabbling in horror. What will call more attention than the story’s spooks is Soderbergh’s innovative decision to literally evoke a ghost’s point of view. What would be the sensation of being a floating spirit wandering the corners of a home? There is enough of a human component to the story to keep us engaged, but for once, we are in the shoes of the entity and not the haunted parties.

The house in question is a suburban spot welcoming a new, upper middle class family. Rebecca (Lucy Liu) and Chris (Chris Sullivan) are classic, corporate American go-getters. They arrive with adolescent siblings Chloe (Callina Liang) and Tyler (Eddy Maday). While Tyler is a jock eager to tap into the high school’s popular crowd, Chloe is still traumatized by her best friend Nadia’s death from a drug overdose. Her moodiness takes a new turn when she senses a presence in her room. A cold breeze might blow at her from a closet. Books are rearranged on their own. There is no doubt there is something out of the ordinary going on, though the family is hesitant to believe it. For Chloe, the deeper question is if this entity might possibly Nadia reaching to her from the beyond.

When Soderbergh plays with genres, he does not imitate but adapts whatever he is playing with to his distinct voice. It could be an action thriller like “Haywire,” drug epic “Traffic” or the 2022 hacker thriller “Kimi,” they all feel uniquely his. “Presence” does the same by turning upside down what we’re used to in haunted house movies. Again filling the role of his own cinematographer, Soderbergh shoots the story like a hybrid of serious dramas such as “A Ghost Story” with the voyeur escapism of “Paranormal Activity.” It’s closer to the former in how the aim isn’t necessarily to terrify the audience. You can’t easily term this movie as being scary. We are aware of the wandering spirit because we’re always gazing through its eyes. Soderbergh casually has a book levitate from a bed or lets a door creep open with lighting that doesn’t aim for horror aesthetic. There is still tension in the moments where the entity does erupt in anger, shaking walls or making things fall. The difference with a popcorn escape is that we’re not engaged by the paranormal jolts. It’s the family that draws us in.

The screenplay by David Koepp, who has become a regular Soderbergh collaborator, sketches the house’s inhabitants with very simple, grounded details that turn “Presence” into a convincing domestic drama. If spirits roam houses with a consciousness, then surely they would be able to overhear sensitive conversations. Soderbergh’s camera floats through the house in unbroken shots, stopping a window where Chris makes a confessional phone call or Rebecca dotes on spoiled Tyler. Chloe begins to deteriorate and while Chris is a supportive, kind father, Rebecca and Tyler can be coldly dismissive. It is easy to sense Rebecca is so busy that a teenage breakdown is a nuisance. A clear portrait forms of how the dynamics of this family operate and which apples fell closer to which trees. Suburban life unfolds before the snooping entity, including microcosmic details of teenage life. Tyler brings over Ryan (West Mulholland), a popular kid from school who starts hooking up with Chloe while speaking in deceptively reassuring language about consent.

Soderbergh could have let the volume continue rising into something akin to “The Conjuring” movies. That will never be his style. When the family decides to deal with the weird occurrences Chloe seems to be right about, we do get a psychic visitor and prophetic warnings, but issued with the grounded nature of a documentary. The psychic even requires payment since she’s taking a day off work. Those kinds of details have always enriched a Soderbergh movie. His “Magic Mike” looked at male strippers as struggling proletarians during the Great Recession. In “Che,” he shot the Che Guevara story as a detached, clinical study in guerrilla warfare. “Presence” takes its ghost very seriously while working as a portrait of middle class despair. We get hints that Chris is not an internally happy man, admitting to Chloe that he married Rebecca with low confidence, enjoying the idea of being bossed around. “Presence” thus becomes more compelling than your average spookfest. This is an ordinary, modern American family, half white and Asian, suddenly having their suburban values shaken by something extreme.

Steven Soderbergh started as an indie darling in the 1990s and despite dabbling a few times in big budget hits and winning an Oscar, he has never abandoned his filmmaking roots. “Presence” is a compact experience, never leaving the house and using special effects that feel like they could have been around in the silent era. The last act goes for a sudden shock you would get in a Blumhouse movie (though much flashier), yet it feels earned. Its eeriness slowly creeps in when we realize we’re spying on every member of this family, in the way privacy is now an illusion with or without ghosts. For those who believe, it may have the unsettling power of making you wonder if we’re ever truly alone. Ultimately, “Presence” engages the most on its level of craft, with Soderbergh dismissing what’s common or trendy to make us feel like this is a whole new experience. 

“Presence” releases Jan. 24 in theaters nationwide.