- Directed by Bryce McGuire
- Written by Bryce McGuire, Rod Blackhurst
- Stars Wyarr Russekk, Kerry Cordon, Amelie Hoeferle, Gavin Warren
- Run Time: 1 Hour, 38 Minutes
- Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pcSNqteCEtE
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
This was good in every way, well made and creepy, with a good cast. The big fault was predictability. A savvy viewer can guess what’s coming at pretty much every stage and be correct. Because of that we’d rate it good, not great.
Spoilery Synopsis
Summer, 1992. The little girl wakes up and notices there’s a toy boat driving around their pool. She goes into her brother Tommy’s room, and he’s on medical machines. She tells him she’ll get his boat. Then she goes out and something pulls her into the water. We see some ghosts in the background as she drowns. Afterward, there’s not a body in the pool. Credits roll.
Ray and Eve Waller look at buying a house with their two kids, Izzy and Elliot. He’s a former baseball star, and he walks with a cane. This house has a pool; Ray’s always wanted a pool. Ray almost immediately falls in, and he gets a flashback to hitting a home run while down there. He saw a baseball floating on the surface.
He gets out just fine, but goes to see the doctor; he has “episodes” of MS. The doctor wants to run tests, and she tells Ray to use the wheelchair more often. She suggests low impact exercise– like swimming. They decide to take the house with the pool. We get a quick “moving in” montage. Izzy is invited to the “Christian Swim Club” as Ray and family work to clean out the filthy pool. It doesn’t go smoothly.
They call in a pool tech, and he says the pool is spring-fed and everything is natural. The overly philosophical pool guy says they’re lucky to have it. Before long, the whole family is enjoying the pool. Later that night, Eve is out swimming alone, and for just a second, she thinks she sees someone standing next to the pool. She goes inside, but everyone is in bed, so it wasn’t one of them.
The cat goes missing that night, and they find its collar in the water the next day. Ray hurt his hand cleaning the pool a few days ago, but it’s miraculously healed now. The doctor says Ray has made a dramatic improvement in his MS. He credits the “water therapy.”
Elliot goes swimming, and the ghosts throw coins in for him to dive for. He thinks he sees a girl there, but he’s alone. He hears a girl named Rebecca calling to him… from inside the pool drain. Then he sees something large and hairy in there.
Ray starts helping as the kids’ team baseball coach. The other coach asks Ray to take some swings, and Ray can’t hit the ball or even stand up well; he’s not as good as he was just a few days ago. Eventually, he thinks of the pool and hits one that goes for what looks like miles.
Ray and Eve go out for the evening, so Izzy has Ronin, her friend from the swim team, over. They wind up out in the pool. He climbs out, and she plays Marco Polo with a hideous creature. Ronin returns, and he didn’t see anything.
It’s Saturday, and the family is throwing a pool party for– everyone in the neighborhood. Elliot wants to know what Izzy saw, but she tells him to shut up, as no one will believe that the pool is haunted. Everyone gets in the pool except for Izzy and Elliot, who are wary. So is Eve, although she hasn’t told anyone. The realtor who sold the house comes to the party, and she tells Eve about the former owners and their daughter, who drowned there. The little girl’s name was Rebecca.
Meanwhile, out in the pool, something goes inside Ray. Ray tries to drown one of the kids at the party, and passes out himself. The kid’s father is the baseball coach, who tells Ray not to come back to practice, but he’s not going to press charges. Some think it must’ve been the MS doing something involuntary with Ray’s muscles. Eve tells Ray that there’s something wrong with the pool, and she wants to move out. She convinces Ray to get in the car, but as they drive away, he has a seizure, so they go right back to the house.
Eve does research and finds that a lot of the people who lived there before her have gone missing. She goes to see Mrs. Summers, whose daughter drowned in the pre-credit sequence. Her son Tommy is now a rich and famous ambassador. He was the sick boy at the beginning, and he got better. Little Tommy would hardly ever get out of the water; and she claims to not even remember having a daughter named Rebecca. Eve keeps pressing and finally, the old woman compares the house to a wishing well. “Some water is magic. Before there was a house or a pool, there was a spring in the ground.” The well has a wish of its own; someone has to pay so the water can keep giving. It kills people sometimes to recharge itself. We get a flashback to see what really happened that night. She allowed it to take her daughter so her son could thrive. “Love requires sacrifice.”
Elliot hears the cat outside by the pool, so he climbs out on the diving board to get to it. He falls in, and the pool cover closes, trapping him underneath. Izzy and Eve work to open the cover. Eve dives in but doesn’t see anyone down there. Izzy runs inside to find Ray, who seems to be possessed now. Outside, Eve dives about a mile straight down to grab Elliot and pull him up. There are many ghosts down there, and they all attack. Rebecca’s ghost shows Eve which way to go, and she gets out.
Inside, Ray chases Izzy all over the place, being as creepy as possible about it. Ray goes outside and attacks Eve. Izzy whacks him with a baseball bat. The water won’t let Elliot leave; Ray remembers that “someone has to pay.” Ray walks into the dark water and vanishes. Elliot is going to be fine now.
Eve suggests selling the house, but then this will all just happen to someone else. They decide to have the pool filled in with dirt.
Commentary
The lesson here is that water is bad.
The acting was decent, the plot moved along at a fair pace, the ghosts were well done, and the plot was… entirely predictable. If I have any complaints, it’s the predictability of the plot. At every stage, you know exactly what’s going to happen and the odd part is, you’ll probably be right every time.
It was fine.