Presence: The Ghost Is You...

There’s something deeply perverse about the way Steven Soderbergh seduces us. Like a casino hypnotist who knows exactly when to double down, the master of independent cinema has once again played with our expectations—this time transforming us into supernatural voyeurs. Presence is not the horror film you thought you were getting—it’s something far more unsettling: an invitation to experience death from the driver’s seat. When I first heard about this project, my mind immediately ran to David Lowery’s A Ghost Story—that melancholic masterpiece where Casey Affleck wanders beneath a white sheet like a lost child on Halloween. But here’s the crucial difference: while Lowery turns us into empathetic witnesses of eternal loneliness, Soderbergh does something far more radical. He places us directly inside the ghost’s body, handing us its eyes, its movements, its fragmented perspective of reality. It’s as if David Lynch had directed Paranormal Activity after a therapy session with Jacques Lacan. The camerawork—because yes, Soderbergh is still his own cinematographer under the pseudonym Peter Andrews—becomes the true protagonist of this experience. We’re not watching a film; we’re inhabiting a disembodied consciousness. The camera floats, observes, spies with the unhealthy curiosity of someone who has nothing left to lose. Every shot is a whisper, every movement a silent confession. It’s cinematography as demonic possession, but executed with the technical refinement of someone who has spent decades perfecting his craft. This is where Presence reveals its true nature: it isn’t horror—it’s existential voyeurism. Like Alejandro Amenábar’s The Others—that gothic gem where Nicole Kidman discovers she’s the ghost haunting the living—Soderbergh lets us experience “the other side” of the supernatural equation. But where Amenábar builds a classic narrative puzzle, Soderbergh deconstructs the genre itself, turning it into something closer to a visual poem about observation and memory. The family inhabiting the house becomes our unwilling entertainment, a kind of domestic reality show filtered through the perception of the dead. Their awkward dynamics, their petty daily cruelties, their poorly kept secrets—all take on an almost comic dimension when observed from the perspective of someone who can no longer be wounded by human pettiness. It’s as if American Beauty were narrated by Lester Burnham himself from beyond the grave, with all the biting irony that entails. But here comes the twist that makes Presence truly disturbing: when our ghostly perspective begins to recognize fragments of its own tragedy replaying before its eyes. This is the moment when Soderbergh unleashes his narrative mastery, creating an emotional-time loop that makes everything that came before suddenly acquire devastatingly personal meaning. It isn’t coincidence—it’s cinematic destiny. The suspense he had been meticulously building transforms into pure existential horror. Soderbergh’s true genius lies in understanding that the most effective terror doesn’t come from what jumps out of the shadows, but from what stays still, watching, waiting for the perfect moment to reveal itself. Like a visual Chuck Palahniuk, he makes us accomplices to a subtle yet devastating psychological violence. Every enigmatic sign, every object that moves without explanation, is a note in a symphony of unease that he orchestrates with the precision of a Swiss watchmaker. For those expecting cheap scares and special effects, Presence will be a disappointment. For those of us who understand that true auteur cinema means creating universes with their own physical and moral laws, this film is a reminder of why Soderbergh remains one of the most important filmmakers of our era. In a cinematic landscape saturated with reboots and sequels, Presence is an act of creative resistance: a film unafraid to be exactly what it wants to be, without apologies or concessions. And that, in itself, is more terrifying than any ghost.