Centering on a ghost because it haunts a household in a comfortable suburban house, Presence may look like a horror film within the vein of Poltergeist, The Amityville Horror, or The Conjuring. However of their follow-up to the tech thriller Kimi, longtime associates director Steven Soderbergh and screenwriter David Koepp say that Presence was by no means conceived of as or supposed to be a horror film.
“It is a ghost story,” Koepp advised Mashable in a joint in-person interview with Soderbergh, who concurred, including that the movie will not be horror by his definition. For Soderbergh, whose mom was a parapsychologist, the thought of a ghost in the home is not inherently scary. Or extra particularly, it is not scary in the way in which trendy audiences take into consideration horror. He thinks of Presence as “extra The Shining than Longlegs.“
Koepp expanded on this: “Within the final 10 to fifteen years, horror has actually been distinguished and adjusted. Gore and soar scares are big. When individuals hear horror, they consider that. After I consider horror, I consider Linda Blair within the MRI tube [in The Exorcist].”
It is in such moments of grounded, on a regular basis, human nervousness that Presence thrives. Utilizing first-person perspective — shot by Soderbergh, who served as helmer and cinematographer — Presence follows an enigmatic spirit because it eavesdrops unseen on a household of 4 (Lucy Liu, Chris Sullivan, Callina Liang, and Eddy Maday), who’re going via an array of private {and professional} tensions. Somewhat than this presence being a menace of their family, it’s a captive viewers who appears determined to be part of the household’s lives and assist nevertheless it could possibly. However with no voice and little capability to be acknowledged by anybody however a grieving teen woman, its wrestle is fraught with nervousness and heartache. And this was impressed by Soderbergh’s personal brushes with ghosts.
Presence is loosely primarily based on Soderbergh’s personal haunted home.
Callina Liang, Chris Sullivan, Eddy Maday, Lucy Lui, and Julia Fox search a without end house in “Presence.”
Credit score: NEON
For the director behind Ocean’s Eleven and Logan Fortunate, Presence started when “our home sitter noticed a ghost” in his Los Angeles house. Whereas Soderbergh hasn’t skilled a mystical encounter with a spirit in his house or elsewhere, he believes those that say they’ve — citing Jeff Ross, who shared his scary story on Movie star Ghost Tales — due to his belief in them and their real alarm. And this bought him pondering, as he advised Mashable, “I simply bought to pondering how I might really feel — if I might been killed in my very own home — about different individuals coming into my home. And that is the place it began.”
From there, he’d despatched Koepp just a few pages of a draft, imagining the spirit wandering the area and seeing a realtor arrive with potential patrons. “Steven had this concept: first-person viewpoint of the ghost, ought to all be in a single home, and it feels prefer it needs to be a household drama. And I used to be like, effectively, okay, these are my three favourite issues. I understand how to put in writing a household. I really like a contained area, and your aesthetic concept is basically cool.”
“The ghost is the Computer virus for a portrait of a household struggling,” Soderbergh defined, “And that has an unbelievable blind spot within the heart of it.”
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The primary-person perspective meant that every one scenes can be shot as oners — an extended take with no cuts. This was a “field film” problem (as Soderbergh put it) that Koepp, the screenwriter behind equally constrained movies like The Paper and Panic Room, relished. But there’s one scene in Presence that, for just a few moments, appears to interrupt this POV framework to a stunning and intelligent impact. Simply do not name it a “wink.”
Steven Soderbergh hates winking, each literal and metaphorical.
Producer Ken Myers, screenwriter David Koepp, producer Julie M. Anderson, and director Steven Soderbergh pose on the “Presence” premiere.
Credit score: NEON
Presence — which I championed as a superb instance of horror in my evaluate — turns the expectations of a ghost story on its head by placing audiences within the sneakers of the light spirit at its heart. Somewhat than this first-person perspective getting used as spooky voyeurism, because the shot is usually employed in slasher films, it carries a way of vulnerability that excited each Koepp as a author and Soderbergh because the performer of this ghost via his digital camera’s lens.
“Vulnerability was [crucial], as a result of within the pages he despatched me,” Koepp mentioned, “The factor’s trying across the empty home, individuals are available in, and it retreats to the closet. And I believed, ‘Oh, it is scared, it is susceptible.’ That modified the whole lot, as a result of it is not the presence that wishes to scare you and has some type of energy and authority. It is in no way. It is precisely the other. It is that vulnerability that was key to writing that.”
But there is a second the place Soderbergh’s digital camera switches from its fluid wandering movement, as an alternative perching excessive within the daughter’s bed room, overlooking her at her desk. Then, within the fringe of the highest proper of body, a really acquainted sight in a horror film about ghosts happens. The bed room door opens slowly, as if by itself. However simply because the viewers may suppose Soderbergh has unceremoniously ditched his first-person POV, the daddy of the household enters, slyly subverting the expectation of a scare for one thing comforting and customary.
“That was within the script,” Soderbergh says, crediting Koepp. “And it got here on the proper time to type of — I do not wish to say wink. I do not wish to say it was a wink. My spouse made the error early in our relationship, and I do not know what motivated this, however she winked at me. And I misplaced my thoughts, and was like, ‘Don’t ever.’ So simply the phrase and the entire notion of ‘wink’ [repulses me] — I do not suppose we had been winking. However I preferred the concept for a second, you recognize, ‘Oh, they’re gonna do this factor.’ After which his head comes out, and she or he jumps [in surprise]. Okay, so that you do want to seek out these moments of launch, completely. , Jaws is likely one of the funniest films on the market — the viewers needs that launch [amid the tension].”
Credit score: NEON
Pressed on why winks trouble him so, Soderbergh mused, “I’ve actually bought to do a deep dive on why, in actual life, I discover that so disturbing. Possibly it is as a result of I am unable to perceive. It is unthinkable that I might do it to somebody, so it is a lack of creativeness on my half, to enter a headspace wherein I might suppose that was a superb factor to do, you recognize? And made me really feel like, who are you? She simply laughed about it when she noticed my response, prefer it wasn’t that massive an ask.” He continued, “After which so far as movies go, I believe that is very, very harmful territory, as a result of the default mode is that it is considerably self-referential. I used to be snug with it right here as a result of it was referential to a style as an entire, proper? And never like one other film that I had made…I am simply unnerved by [winks].”
From there, the pair mentioned how there are names and numbers that recur of their respective tasks. However Soderbergh insists this is not self-referential winking. “There’s an organization title that at all times clears that I take advantage of quite a bit, known as Perennial,” he defined, “So if you happen to had been to undergo my filmography, there are most likely eight or 9 Perennials in there. It really works for something: dry cleaner, armored automobiles. In order that, to me, will not be winking, I am attempting to resolve an issue.”
The pair have identified one another since 1989, when their respective first movies — Soderbergh’s Intercourse, Lies and Videotape and Koepp’s Condo Zero — performed on the Sundance Movie Competition. Although Koepp as soon as pitched his follow-up Dying Turns into Her to Soderbergh, the 2 did not collaborate till 2022’s Kimi. However since then, they’ve reunited for Presence and the upcoming spy drama Black Bag. So, in any case these many years collectively, how do they know when a mission is greatest suited to their collaboration?
Koepp mentioned it is when an off-the-cuff dialog about an concept comes up repeatedly, and the idea grows from there. Soderbergh concurred, then quipped, “I will wink!”
Presence is now taking part in in theaters.
