Night Swim writer and director Bryce McGuire reveals challenges in making a feature length film out of a short, his perfect cast, and more at NYCC.
Produced by Blumhouse, Night Swim was originally a short film made just over eight years ago. Horror legend James Wan was engrossed by the idea, taking in the creator and concept to make the film under his company, Atomic Monster.
Now with Blumhouse and James Wan’s Atomic Monster coming together, Jason Blum was also a big fan of the idea, taking in the creator and concept as well. At New York Comic Con 2023, Mama’s Geeky sat down with Night Swim director Bryce McGuire to talk all about his new horror film.
Night Swim releases in theaters on January 5th and the first trailer is out now, not revealing too much but just enough to keep you scared of your pool.
Director Bryce McGuire Talks Night Swim
Mama’s Geeky: I think turning a short film into a feature length film is such an amazing feat. How did the challenges come about in terms of translating it from something shorter to a little bit longer?
Bryce McGuire: Yeah, you basically have to have the right idea and it’s not a matter of just taking the short and being like, let’s add more time to that. You have to kind of almost back out and look at it from a ground zero perspective. Take what works about the short, take the fundamental concept of like Scary Pool and then basically clear the slate completely and what’s the actual story to be told here without getting too much into it? I will say it took a beat to be like it’s not worth doing unless there’s a big enough of an idea, a big enough of mystery to justify that length because sometimes I think that it is a problem in shorts into features, they just kind of repeat the same gag again and again, and I’ve adapted quite a few shorts and features for studios. Like I did a thing called Whisper for Amblin Bag Head for Studio Canal and I’ve kind of seen where I just watch other films that have had that same pattern. I’ve seen where it’s worked. I’ve seen where it hasn’t. And I think for me, I just want to be really certain that there was enough meat on the bone and to have a real story.
Mama’s Geeky: When you were making the short, did you ever have a moment of like, this could be a feature length film?
Bryce McGuire: You know, weirdly there was a lightning strike moment that was a little bit after where I was like, oh, hold on. Now. That’s a movie. I knew the pool was scary as an environment. I mean, I knew that it was going to connect with people and tap into their childhood trauma and phobias, but I just didn’t know what the idea that anchored all of that terror around to continue for a longer amount of time.
Mama’s Geeky: What was it like finding that perfect cast that just scratched the perfect itch for this horror film.
Bryce McGuire: Yeah, this cast has everything. They’re the ones that are going to bring your characters to life, bring your story to life. For Wyatt. It was pretty quick that happened because he’s a former professional hockey player and this character is a former professional baseball player. So he understood the journey of being an athlete. He had that physicality. He’s a really good athlete and he kind of just understood the psychology of that character. And when he clicked in, I feel like I was like, I sort of see the matrix code a little bit, he anchored that and then the pieces kind of came around and then Kerry, read it and liked it. And we managed a great conversation. Then I was like, OK, I see. Then there’s this couple and she’s so incredible and he’s so great. Then every next piece of cast, it’s a little bit easier, right? Because it’s like you’re doing a puzzle, every little piece is like, OK, then that goes there, OK, that goes there, that goes there, and that’s very much what that feeling was like for me.
Mama’s Geeky: As the writer and director of the short film and now the writer and director of the feature film, you got a lot of time to sit with this idea, this script, when you were on set, were you finding yourself making a lot of changes to the script or were you kind of sticking to that bone and, and going from there?
Bryce McGuire: So the original short film I did with my buddy Rod Blackhurst is also an amazing filmmaker and doing his own cool stuff. So the core of the story never changed from when we had that idea. I will say the past five years I’ve had as a professional screenwriter before making this movie was so helpful to me because it allowed me to adapt very quickly because sometimes it’s like rain that’s washing out a set. Sometimes it’s just a scheduling thing that happens. There’s always going to be things that you see somebody like it’s just not working, you have to adapt, you always have to adapt to your filmmaking. I think being able to solve that problem on the page on a writing level. Writer Bryce really helped director Bryce at some crucial moments but the heart of the story, the core of the story never changed.
NEXT: Blumhouse NYCC Panel: M3gan 2, FNAF, & Night Swim Details
About Night Swim
No running. No diving. No lifeguard on duty. No swimming after dark.
Atomic Monster and Blumhouse, the producers of M3GAN, high dive into the deep end of horror with the new supernatural thriller, Night Swim.
Based on the acclaimed 2014 short film by Rod Blackhurst and Bryce McGuire, the film stars Wyatt Russell (The Falcon and the Winter Soldier) as Ray Waller, a former major league baseball player forced into early retirement by a degenerative illness, who moves into a new home with his concerned wife Eve (Oscar® nominee Kerry Condon, The Banshees of Inisherin), teenage daughter Izzy (Amélie Hoeferle, this fall’s The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes) and young son Elliot (Gavin Warren, Fear the Walking Dead).
Secretly hoping, against the odds, to return to pro ball, Ray persuades Eve that the new home’s shimmering backyard swimming pool will be fun for the kids and provide physical therapy for him. But a dark secret in the home’s past will unleash a malevolent force that will drag the family under, into the depths of inescapable terror.
Night Swim is written and directed by Bryce McGuire (writer of the upcoming film Baghead) and is produced by James Wan, the filmmaker behind the Saw, Insidious and The Conjuring franchises, and Jason Blum, the producer of the Halloween films, The Black Phone and The Invisible Man. The film is executive produced by Michael Clear and Judson Scott for Wan’s Atomic Monster and by Ryan Turek for Blum’s Blumhouse.
