A family moves into a suburban house and becomes convinced they're not alone.
Steven Soderbergh's Presence is their first foray into the horror genre and of course it is anything but conventional. Soderbergh directed from a screenplay by David Koepp and it made waves at the time because the director turned the camera into the supernatural spirit that resides in the home that the family just moved into. Everything you see happening to the family is from the spirit's perspective.
Neon was quick to the chase and scooped Presence up and they'll put it in theaters in the new year, on January 17th. A very brief, official teaser was released today. You will find it down below. It features a controlled shot looking above a street, outside the house, then it pulls back into the house and turns around to look into an empty room. All the while, titles of previous and lauded films from Soderbergh's career appear in a short list of acomplishments before Presence fills in the middle spot. Just to remind you that Soderbergh is the shit. Just like the teaser poster.
Presence stars Lucy Liu, Chris Sullivan, Callina Liang, Eddy Maday, West Mulholland, and Julia Fox.
Our own Mel caught Presence when it premiered at Sundance at the beginning of the year. You will find his full review here, if you wish, but here is an excerpt from the opening paragraphs.
Shot primarily in a single, standalone set over less than two weeks and a limited shooting schedule, Presence doesn’t reinvent or reimagine tropes associated with haunted house or supernatural ghost stories. Far from it.What Presence does do — in Soderbergh’s approach to formal experimentation within predetermined boundaries (e.g., genre, setting, and so forth) — it does far better and far more effectively than the vast majority of filmmakers currently writing and directing within the horror space could achieve within the same preset parameters.