For a 98-minute film, the middle 30 minutes drag painfully. We spend too much time watching the sisters argue about cleaning out the basement and not enough time engaging with the horror. There is a ten-minute sequence where the youngest sister vlogs about her mother’s old vinyl records that, while thematically relevant, kills the momentum.
Viewers looking for a tidy explanation will be frustrated. The film teases a fascinating monster—a water spirit that mirrors your deepest regret—but never commits to the rules. Does it require belief to work? Is it contagious? By the end, you’re left with three conflicting interpretations, none of which feel fully satisfying. It’s “elevated horror” that forgets to be scary in its final act. new horror on amazon prime
This isn’t a “teens in a cabin” movie. The Midnight Swim is about inherited trauma. The eldest sister (a phenomenal Mia Rodriguez) tries to rationalize everything as grief-induced psychosis. The middle sister (Jenna Kline) leans into the town’s folklore about a "drowned woman" who steals your voice. The youngest, a TikTok-obsessed teen, films everything, turning the haunting into content. The film cleverly asks: Is the lake haunted, or are these women finally seeing the monster their mother always warned them about? For a 98-minute film, the middle 30 minutes drag painfully