Steven Soderbergh’s upcoming horror movie flips the haunted house subgenre on its head by having the whole movie shot from the ghost’s perspective. But that’s not the only strange thing about Presence, as Soderbergh says he found inspiration for the look of the movie in the most unlikely of places… a ’00s ghost-hunting reality TV show.
“One of my favorite shows is Celebrity Ghost Stories. You’ve got to see it! You can tell people were traumatized by these experiences – they’re not kidding around,” Soderbergh says in the new issue of SFX magazine, which features Star Trek spin-off movie Section 31 on the cover and hits newsstands on December 31.
“What distinguished a lot of those stories was that they often didn’t come with the trappings of a typical ghost experience as we’ve seen in the movies – they were very matter-of-fact,” explains the director. “I thought, ‘Okay, that’s interesting.'”
Premiering in 2009, Celebrity Ghost Stories is an American reality series that details accounts of paranormal happenings experienced by celebrities. Over the years, stars such as Carrie Fisher, Mickey Rooney, and Chaka Khan appeared on the show. A usual episode consists of the celebrity being interviewed about their experience whilst eerie B-roll, creepy music, and dramatic retellings play throughout.
However, unlike many ghost-hunting series which take place during the night, Celebrity Ghost Stories opts to show the houses during the day. In that sense, we can see where the inspiration comes from. Presence, which follows a family who moves into a seemingly haunted suburban house, plays out chiefly during daylight as the haunting figure patrols the house.
So, if the ghost is behind the camera the whole time, who plays it? That would be the director himself. “I’m used to being close to the actors as the camera operator, but this was a real dance that I was doing with the cast. It was fun, because I really got to share some of their performance anxiety as we were doing the scene… On occasion, a take would get ruined because I’d bumped into them, or got trapped in the wrong place because I timed my movement incorrectly.”
The movie is written by Jurassic Park’s David Koepp and stars Lucy Liu, Chris Sullivan, Callina Liang, Eddy Maday, West Mulholland, and Julia Fox.
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Presence releases on January 24, 2025. Read more in the latest issue of SFX magazine, which features Star Trek spin-off movie Section 31 on the cover and hits newsstands on Tuesday, December 31.
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