Goddamnit, Steven Soderbergh, you’re always two steps ahead of me. I’ve always had the thought: “Why doesn’t someone make a horror movie about a ghost where we’re seeing everything through the ghost’s perspective?” Well, that’s exactly what Soderbergh did. Presence, starring Lucy Liu, is a 2024 supernatural horror story about a family who’ve just moved into an antique suburban house. Note to self: never do that. 

The Payne family consists of mother Rebekah (Liu), her husband Chris (Chris Sullivan), and their two teenage children, Tyler and Chloe. From the get-go, it’s obvious that tensions exist within this family. Rebekah is a successful working mom who’s far too occupied with her career to see how emotionally vulnerable her daughter Chloe is after a traumatic event, which her husband Chris has been trying to make her see. All the while, Chloe and her brother, who’s a star athlete at their high school, don’t seem to get along either. The most interesting part, however, is that we see all of this through the eyes of a “presence” in this house. 

The entire movie, from the first shot to the last, is filmed through a POV shot. Soderbergh himself was the camera operator throughout the filming process, effectively taking on the role of this “presence,” and shot the whole film with a steadicam. Let me repeat that because it bears repeating: the WHOLE film, with a steadicam. No cutaways to close-ups, no insert shots, no pretty expository shots. Every scene, every line of dialogue, all of it, shot with a wide steadicam. The absolute madlad.

Doing something like this takes a significant amount of rehearsal to ensure the blocking and transitions are absolutely perfect. Furthermore, to keep that sense of tension without utilizing certain filmic sensibilities that we often see with the horror genre, focusing just on this POV shot, is very impressive. It’s also a movie that doesn’t overstay its welcome. At 85 minutes, it effectively tells the story it needs to and keeps you engaged and unnerved throughout. 

Although I thought certain characters weren’t fleshed out enough, with Lucy Liu, in particular, being pretty jarringly underused, I still think Presence is a solid watch. It’s awesome to see a director like Soderbergh, even after all these years, continue to play with filmmaking constraints and do these little experimental projects.