Steven Soderbergh, renowned for his genre-skimming career, has taken a dive into supernatural thriller territory with his latest film, Presence. This captivating tale is more than a standard horror flick. Uniquely, it weaves themes of grief, trauma, and familial dysfunction within the tense confines of a Victorian home. For 85 eerie minutes, audiences are led to reconsider the allure and safety of property investment as the narrative unfolds entirely within the home’s walls, placing the property at the heart of the growing suspense.
Unlike any previous work by Steven Soderbergh, Presence distinguishes itself by transforming its setting from mere backdrop to a living, breathing character. This makes the film an intriguing addition to cinema’s haunted house canon, where architectural spaces can control the narrative just as effectively as the characters themselves. From Alfred Hitchcock’s legendary Psycho with its unsettling Bates residence, to James Wan’s intricate traps in The Conjuring, the domain of property as a psychological and supernatural antagonist has rich precedence in film history.
The Victorian home in Presence heightens tension with its layout, light, and shade, making it as memorable as Hitchcock’s iconic settings or the sprawling suburban house haunted by sorrow in Ari Aster’s Hereditary. Much like these seminal works that use architecture as a vessel for dread, this latest film underscores a vital rule of horror: every corner of a home can simultaneously offer shelter and threat.
In Presence, the focus on the structure’s details enhances the viewer’s emotional connection to the space. With its ghostly narration conveyed through the eyes of a restless spirit, the film turns conventional horror on its head, offering audiences a narrative driven by the geography of fear—the very spaces they inhabit shaping the fear and drama of the story.
Following in the footsteps of cinematic masterpieces like Rebecca by Hitchcock, or the spectacular production design of The Brutalist, Steven Soderbergh’s Presence uses its haunted home as more than a horror setting. It becomes a sociopolitical commentary, reveling in the symbolism of a household, echoing the anguish and torment of broken American dreams, much like the ornamental abode of suburban bitterness in American Beauty.
Even outside the horror genre, homes stand as powerful symbols. For instance, in Bong Joon-ho’s Parasite, the modern allure of an elite city home becomes a theater of class warfare and entrapment, an immaculate site from which the power dynamics of servitude are laid bare. Similarly, Steven Soderbergh allows the home in Presence to echo the societal struggles and conflicts boiling within its walls, reminding viewers of the oppressive and liberating forces of property.
The use of architecture to drive narrative offers filmmakers a rich palette to explore themes of isolation, alienation, and oppression. The brutalist and modernist structures in films like Ex Machina or High-Rise illustrate how settings can reflect back societal privilege or impending chaos, as seen in the stark glass and steel of tech-bro lairs or futuristic living spaces collapsing into disorder.
Steven Soderbergh masterfully employs the same concept in Presence, where the story is wrapped around the haunting influence of its structure, begging the question of how much control one truly has over the spaces they occupy. In the quiet horror of domesticity, the house in Presence becomes a mirror for its occupants’ darkest fears—a cautionary tale of how surroundings shape destiny, often with sinister intent.
As audiences watch Presence, they are drawn into a dynamic interplay—a gripping saga where every architectural element contributes to the psychological tension. It’s an immersive experience that reflects on the obsessions and torments that are deeply connected to the idea of home as both sanctuary and prison.
For movie enthusiasts, particularly those intrigued by how Steven Soderbergh’s work influences and transcends genres, Presence will be a thought-provoking, thrilling addition. It challenges perceptions of security within one’s own home—an environment where the physical can manifest supernatural dread, entwining property into a narrative of suspense and terror.
While Presence stands firm within the spectrum of haunted house films, it simultaneously reshapes it, showcasing a property-driven saga that’s urgent, relatable, and chillingly prescient. It invites audiences to engage with the narrative not just through its characters, but through the architecture enveloping them, making it a significant step forward in Steven Soderbergh’s illustrious career.
