Presence Review – ‘Turns the horror genre inside out’

Steven Soderbergh has never been one to shy away from formal experimentation. Whether working in the studio system or independently, shooting on 16mm film or an iPhone, innovation is his trademark. His next bold venture arrives in the form of Presencewhich was shot in secret in the summer of 2023 and finds the filmmaker reinventing the paranormal thriller through an original point of view—in more ways than one.

Soderbergh acts as his own cinematographer, his camera assuming the first-person perspective of a ghost floating through the halls of a spacious suburban home. Matriarch Rebecca (Lucy Liu) and her nuclear family have moved in, and the spirit watches as a seemingly idyllic unit begins to show its cracks. Caught in hypnotic long takes and wide angles, Rebecca fawns over her star athlete son Tyler (Eddy Maday) while her daughter Chloe (Callina Liang) languishes in isolation. In the next room, her husband (Chris Sullivan) wonders if it’s even worth staying.

Despite its premise, Presence is more family drama than supernatural horror. The housemate is not a malevolent ghost seeking to terrorize its housemates, but one that is benevolent, curious and perhaps even frightened. Much of the film unfolds episodically with the spirit as a silent observer, but there are moments when it intervenes and invites the viewer to be more than just a voyeur, almost an active participant. When Chloe notices the ghost circling her and staring straight into the lens, there’s an eerie feeling of feeling like you’re somewhere you shouldn’t be. The jittery reaction from the camera only adds to that feeling. There’s a reason for Chloe’s awareness: her best friend has recently passed away, and she’s starting to believe her ghost has followed her here.

Grief in horror is an eye-rolling trope at this point, but Presence instead pondering what to do to help those left behind. Do you allow them to recover on their own, or do you step in when their heartache fuels unhealthy ways of coping? The latter manifests itself in Tyler’s increasingly suspicious friend Ryan (West Mulholland), who takes a romantic interest in Chloe, adding contrived drama to an otherwise delicately handled story. Nevertheless, it’s all held together by a small but mighty cast: Liu is unsurprisingly spectacular, but Liang (in only her second film) is the real discovery, burying Chloe’s grief under steady calm. Presence lacks scares, but scaring audiences never seems to be the intention. Rather, Soderbergh’s unconventional ghost story positions the camera as a compelling character unto itself. The result is haunting.