EntertainmentMoviesHorror MoviesNight SwimNight Swim ending explained: director Bryce McGuire teases a potential sequelWhen you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
EntertainmentMoviesHorror MoviesNight SwimNight Swim ending explained: director Bryce McGuire teases a potential sequelWhen you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
(Image credit: Blumhouse)
Blumhouse’s latest horror flickNight Swimhas arrived – and while the supernatural thriller has a pretty simple (but terrifying) premise, the ending might leave you with more questions than answers.
Warning: there are massive spoilers ahead for Night Swim! Turn back now if you haven’t seen the movie yet!And if you’re caught up, head to the below for all you need to know.
Night Swim ending explained spoilers
(Image credit: Blumhouse)
The film ends with an emotional montage of recorded clips from Ray in which he addresses his family directly, speaking warmly and optimistically about their future. Eve, Elliot, and Izzy stand around the pool as yard workers fill it up with dirt, wondering if they should move out of the house. But, upon remembering that another family will move in only for the pool to claim another life, they decide to stay – with Izzy telling her family that it’s what her dad would want.
Who or what is possessing the pool?
(Image credit: Blumhouse)
It’s a little bit complicated – but the water has a life of its own, in addition to all the dead people who are chilling down there.
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In an interview with GamesRadar+, director Bryce McGuire explained why he chose to give the pool a sacrificial, wish-fulfillment element, rather than keep the haunting at a more surface level.
“Every time I would see a pool in a movie, it was always like the most like, photogenic environment – whether it’s like The Graduate or Rushmore or A Bigger Splash or Sunset Boulevard or the Francois Ozon film Swimming Pool. The pool always steals the show. But I always kind of felt that the pool was weighted with this Jungian value where it becomes this dreamscape for our own desires,” McGuire says. “Even the Greek myth of Narcissus – someone looking into the reflection of the water and the water shows them back the way they want to be seen or what they desire, right? So, there’s all these things in like world mythology that the water is a source of healing or giving or wish fulfillment.”
Continued McGuire: “I always kind of saw the water as something that reflected and then gives back your dreams to you. There’s a subconscious element to that. It became about like, well look, whatever your dream is, whether that’s to be a journalist or a filmmaker, or a mother or a father, or a sports star or a scientist, whatever your dream is, there are costs to that dream. There are sacrifices to achieve that dream. There is a price to pay for whatever your dream is. What are you willing to give up to achieve this thing that you think that you need to be happy? "
What happens to Ray?
(Image credit: Blumhouse)
Throughout the film, Ray, who initially seemed defeated about his worsening illness, suddenly finds himself becoming stronger. The more time he spends in the water, the more his body starts to heal. Unfortunately, with his newfound strength comes a new violent streak – where he goes so far as to harm a neighborhood child, nearly drowning him during a game of chicken. When the Waller family tries to flee the house, Ray starts convulsing and it becomes clear that he will become gravely ill, if not die, if he isn’t near the water.
Does the ending set up a sequel?
(Image credit: Blumhouse)
We think so. The film ends without any explanation of the water’s true origins, and there is no post-credits scene. The pool may be drained and sealed with dirt, but the evil lies within the water…which has now been forced to move elsewhere. In an interview withSFX Magazine,McGuire revealedthat “there’s a little Easter egg in one of the early scenes that, to me, points a path to where I’d like to go” and that it would be “fun to explore and expand the mythology”.
Our bet, though we’re not sure, is that the scene in question might be the one where the pool cleaner explains to the Wallers that the water in the pool comes from an outside source – which is, as he says, abnormal for swimming pools. So…where is the water coming from? And where did it go? We see the pool water enter into a storm drain – which could technically spread it throughout the entire town. But what about Ray, who has joined the fleet of waterlogged corpses that haunt the swimming pool? Either way, McGuire says there’s much more to the story.
“Well, for anyone that’s been a homeowner or worked around water, we know one thing: water will always find the weakest opening. You plug one hole, what’s water gonna do? Move to the next. So, we know there’s a bigger history to this water. It’s not just about this pool, right? This pool is one part of a bigger ecosystem that exists,” McGuire explained to GamesRadar+. “That hasn’t gone anywhere. It still exists there. And that character is still a part of that realm, but there’s also just like more to explore in the history of the pool as well.”
Night Swim is in theaters now. For more, check out our chats withdirector Bryce McGuire on the film’s origins,star Kerry Condon on acting in her first-ever horror film, andWyatt Russellon preparing for the lead role.
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