Is Night Swim Scary? The Verdict and the Whole Plot
Somewhat, 4 out of 10. It's a backyard-pool haunting with frequent jump scares and a lot of dark water.
🐱THE SCARE SIGNAL
SCARE SCORE
4 /10
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DREAD LEVEL
Medium
You will probably look at the nearest pool twice for a night or so.
DOG
Dog: fine
no dog, though the cat goes missing early.
Ruling: It is a pool haunting with frequent jump scares, and it is easiest to watch from dry land.
Night Swim runs ninety-eight minutes and starts with a family looking for a permanent home. They buy the house with the backyard pool because it might help the father's multiple sclerosis, and the pool is fed by an underground spring, which nobody treats as a warning sign.
The premise, briefly
A retired baseball player and his family move into a house with a backyard pool that seems to help his illness, and something in the water starts attacking them.
How much do you want to know?
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The verdict above is spoiler-free. Everything below, including the ending, stays hidden until you pick a depth.
🐱CUT TO THE CHASE
How it ends
Ray sacrifices himself to stop the entity from taking his children, and the entity vanishes. Eve, Izzy and Elliot stay in the house and arrange to have the pool filled in.
The scene you're dreading
The pool party in the middle of the film, where Ray seems to force a child underwater and nearly drowns himself. After it, Eve decides the family has to leave.
The dog
There is no dog in Night Swim. The family cat, Cider, goes missing early and dies: a collar is found floating in the pool, and no body is shown.
Night Swim is a haunted pool story built around frequent jump scares, and knowing the pool's rule makes them easier to brace for.
THE SHORT VERSION IS HIDDEN
How it ends, the scene you're dreading, what happens to the dog, and the bottom line. About twenty seconds to read.
What actually happens
The listing mentions a pool
In 1992, a girl named Rebecca Summers goes to her family's backyard pool at night to get a toy boat that belongs to her terminally ill brother, Tommy, and something pulls her underwater. In the present day, Ray Waller has had to retire from baseball because of multiple sclerosis. He, his wife Eve and their kids, Izzy and Elliot, look for a permanent home and buy a house with a backyard pool, partly because the water should help Ray's condition. Ray scratches his hand while clearing out the pool. The maintenance crew who come to inspect it say it is essentially self-sustaining and is fed by an underground spring.
The family cat, Cider, goes missing. As part of his therapy Ray spends more and more time in the pool, and his illness seems to go into remission, but Eve notices changes in him that worry her. Izzy and Elliot are each attacked by something in the pool, separately. The realtor, Kay, tells Eve at a pool party that the previous owners' daughter, Rebecca, drowned in the pool. Soon after, Ray seems to force a child underwater and nearly drowns himself. This is the scene to brace for: it comes in the middle of the film, at the party, and Ray survives it. Eve blames his illness at first, decides to leave the house, and finds that Ray gets worse as the family tries to go.
The realtor knows a woman
With Kay's help, Eve traces the Summers family after finding that people have been disappearing from the house for a long time. She meets Lucy, Rebecca's mother, who explains that the pool's water comes from a pagan healing spring from long ago, guarded by a malevolent, fairy-like entity. Whoever wants the water's healing power has to sacrifice someone else to the guardian. Lucy gave up Rebecca to heal her son Tommy. Eve realizes the pool is healing Ray and that the entity will want one of the children in return.
The ending, explained
Eve gets home and finds the entity controlling Ray, with Elliot trapped in the pool and Izzy under attack. Eve goes in after Elliot, and Rebecca's spirit guides her to the surface while Izzy confronts Ray and hits him with a baseball bat, which breaks the entity's hold. Elliot is then possessed. Ray sacrifices himself to keep the entity away from his children, and it vanishes. Eve, Izzy and Elliot decide to stay in the house so no one else becomes a victim, and they arrange to have the pool filled in.
The post-credits ruling
There is no post-credits scene. You can leave when the credits start.
✓ Spoiled safelyDog status: no dog, though the cat goes missing early.
Questions people ask at 1am
Is Night Swim scary?
Somewhat. Night Swim is a 4 out of 10 with medium dread: frequent jump scares, a lot of dark water and not much gore.
How does Night Swim end?
Ray sacrifices himself to stop the entity in the pool from attacking his children, and it vanishes. Eve, Izzy and Elliot stay in the house and have the pool filled in.
Does the dog die in Night Swim?
No, because there's no dog in Night Swim. The family cat, Cider, goes missing early and dies, and all you see is a collar floating in the pool.
Is there a post-credits scene in Night Swim?
No. Night Swim has no post-credits scene, so you can leave when the credits start.
What is the entity in Night Swim?
A malevolent, fairy-like guardian of an ancient pagan healing spring that feeds the pool. In Night Swim it heals people in exchange for a sacrifice, and the house has a long history of disappearances.
BLURRED FOR YOUR PROTECTION
The whole plot of Night Swim is hidden, ending included. It stays that way until you ask.
You can know how Night Swim ends without getting in the water. Install Scaredy Cat and the internet's horror gets blurred before you see it.
