Review: Soderbergh brings unique cinematic ‘Presence’ to this ghost story

REVIEW: ‘Presence’ is a handcrafted ghost story as seen by the ghost

They're selling "Presence" as a horror movie when it's something else entirely: a ghost story as told from the point of view of the ghost. As such, it's more unsettling than scary, more dramatically gripping than nerve-shredding. And it's directed by Steven Soderbergh, so you know it has to be smart.

Steven Soderbergh’s Presence radically subverts the haunted house genre – review

Lucy Liu and Julia Fox star in a film that puts the viewer in the perspective of the ghost haunting a family’s new home

Review: Steven Soderbergh's 'Presence' is shot from ghost's point of view

Since his flirtation with retirement about a decade ago, filmmaker Steven Soderbergh has been working at an almost feverish pace to crank out film after...

Review: ‘Presence’ is a cerebral ghost story that hides a family drama under the sheet

Long live Steven Soderbergh, a filmmaker who resists any premature obituaries that the movies are a dying art form. Soderbergh rarely rests. He’s made 14 movies since he first teased retirement in 2010 and, over the course of his career, has helped boost two innovations: first, the indie revolution with 1989’s “sex, lies and videotape,” and then, the digital camera. Lately, Soderbergh has invested some of his energy into a promising modern Holly…

Soderbergh brings unique cinematic ‘Presence’ to mediocre ghost story

Since his flirtation with retirement about a decade ago, filmmaker Steven Soderbergh has been working at an almost feverish pace, cranking out film after film, usually genre exercises made swiftly, with light, adaptable technology such as iPhones (“Unsane,” “High Flying Bird”). His latest film, “Presence,” is another cinematic experiment, a ghost story seen from the point of view of well, the ghost.

‘Presence’ review: In a tense ghost story with Lucy Liu, a house is haunted through an unseen spirit’s eyes

The writer Christopher Isherwood put it this way, in his novel “Goodbye to Berlin”: “I am a camera with its shutter open, quite passive, recording, not thinking.” The not-thinking part may not apply, since the technique is so thoughtfully deployed, but two films released in early 2025 build on this notion of observational perspective. “Nickel Boys,” already reviewed and, I think, the peak American achievement of the previous year, tells its stor…