Presence (2025) Review: Steven Soderbergh’s Otherwise Unique Ghost’s POV Movie Could Have Been Better
Imagine Paranormal Activity filmed from the ghost’s POV in Steven Soderbergh’s Presence, marking the director’s first foray into the horror genre. But don’t expect this haunted-house horror filled with lots of jump scares and ominous dread. “Scary” isn’t the best word to describe this movie, which might make you wonder what’s the whole point if a horror movie doesn’t fulfil the utmost important criteria.
The pre-title opening scene looks eerily promising as the camera, which acted as the ghost’s POV, looks down at the upstairs room window before it starts to roam around the empty house. But no matter what the ghost does, it can’t seem to leave the house for some reasons unknown. It doesn’t take long before the ghost witnesses the arrival of a real estate agent (Julia Fox) entering the house and shows the family of four — husband Chris (Chris Sullivan) and wife Rebecca (Lucy Liu) along with their two grown-up children, Tyler (Eddy Maday) and Chloe (Callina Liang) — around.
Right off the bat, this isn’t a happy family as the ghost witnesses the occasional bickering and argument even after they occupy the house. For instance, Rebecca often looks uneasy and tense as the wife who is constantly busy working on her laptop. She seems to be the outspoken type, unlike her mild-mannered and more tolerant husband. Their daughter, Chloe is more reserved in the family, especially after dealing with the tragic death of her best friend Nadia due to a drug overdose.
This brings us to the first clue of the movie: could it be the dead Nadia comes back as a ghost wandering around the house? Because that’s how it feels since the ghost seems to focus more on Chloe. At times, the ghost would hide behind her closet and peeking from the inside. Why Chloe? Or more importantly, what’s the real story about the ghost trapped in the house?
The first half somewhat moves at a glacial pace as the ghost spends its time as an observer of sorts staring at the troubled family issues. Soderbergh does employ some of the horror-movie tropes including the ghost starting to manifest itself physically such as making the lights flicker, moving stuff from one place to another and at one point, causing a glass of orange juice to knock over from the nightstand.
The movie also introduces Tyler’s friend, Ryan (West Mulholland), who seemingly has a crush on Chloe. It would take around the second half after the family finally experienced something supernatural going on in their house. This is where Chris starts to take action by calling their real estate agent, who in turn, the latter recommends him to her sister-in-law Lisa (Natalie Woolams-Torres). Lisa claims to be a medium capable of communicating with the dead.
If you are expecting Soderbergh to begin ramping up the pace, he prefers to keep it as deliberate as possible even after the family finds out their house is haunted. It isn’t until the third act that everything comes together. It’s a brilliant, sneaky sleight-of-hand direction that I didn’t see coming, particularly the truth about the ghost and its reason behind all the haunting in the first place.
The good thing is that the movie only runs less than 90 minutes but even so, I still can’t help feeling like Soderbergh could have done a lot more with his unique ghost’s POV premise rather than overly restraining his creative input. And since the movie is written by David Koepp, who previously wrote Soderbergh’s Kimi, I always figure if he’s the one calling the shots instead, given his experience in directing horror movies, notably Stir of Echoes.
