Presence Review – ‘Turns the horror genre inside out’

Steven Soderbergh has never been one to shy away from formal experimentation. Whether he is working within the studio system or independently, shooting on 16mm film or an iPhone, innovation is his trademark. His next audacious venture arrives in the form of Presence, which 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, and his camera assumes the first-person perspective of a ghost, floating through the hallways of a spacious, suburban home. Matriarch Rebecca (Lucy Liu) and her nuclear family have moved in, and the spirit watches on as a seemingly idyllic unit begins to show its cracks. Captured 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 house’s cohabitant isn’t a malicious ghost seeking to terrorise its roommates, but one that’s benevolent, curious and perhaps even frightened. Much of the film plays out episodically with the spirit as a silent observer, but there are moments where it interferes, inviting the viewer to be more than just a voyeur, almost an active participant. When Chloe notices the spectre orbiting her and stares directly down the lens, there’s an eerie sensation of feeling like you’re somewhere where you shouldn’t be. The jittery reaction from the camera only heightens that feeling. There’s a reason for Chloe’s awareness: her best friend has recently passed, and she starts to believe her ghost has followed her here.

Grief in horror is an eye-roll-inducing trope at this point, but Presence instead considers what to do to help the bereaved. Do you allow them to recover alone, or do you step in when their heartbreak fuels unhealthy manners of coping? The latter manifests in Tyler’s increasingly suspect friend Ryan (West Mulholland), who takes a romantic interest in Chloe and adds contrived drama in a story that is otherwise delicately handled. 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 composure. Presence lacks in scares, but terrifying audiences never appears to be the intention. Rather, Soderbergh’s unconventional ghost story situates the camera as a compelling character of its own. The result is haunting.