As noted in my review of Black Bag, Steven Soderbergh long ago made a mockery of his 2013 “retirement”. Released a few weeks prior to Black Bag, Presence became one of his two 2025 efforts.

After a traumatic event, the Payne family – mother Rebekah (Lucy Liu), father Chris (Chris Sullivan) and kids Chloe (Callina Liang) and Tyler (Eddy Maday) – seek a new start. This leads them to purchase a century-old suburban home.

However, this doesn’t allow the Paynes the peace and security they desire. Supernatural forces appear tamper with their lives and create a disturbing setting.

Across his long career, Soderbergh occasionally dipped his toe into thrillers. However, unless I missed something, Presence becomes his first supernatural tale.

That doesn’t mean viewers should expect a traditional ghost story, though. While the narrative comes from the perspective of the “Presence”, the tale doesn’t unfold in an especially spooky manner.

Really, Presence offers more a story of a semi-dysfunctional family. Rebekah offers an overbearing parent who clear cares way more about her son than his sister – or her husband – and Tyler comes across as an arrogant jerk.

Chris seems well-meaning but can’t really stand up to the domineering Rebekah. Chloe struggles to get past prior trauma and remains vulnerable.

All of this acts as the foreground, with supernatural elements in the rear for the most part. Sure, the camera acts as the stand-in for the “Presence”, but that entity acts as a passive force most of the time.

When the “Presence” becomes more active, we get the movie’s forward momentum. Viewers will assume the “Presence” as the ghost of one particular character, but events point in another direction.

Which adds a twist to the ending but not one that feels gimmicky. Indeed, if you watch the film a second time, it becomes easier to pick up on the clues.

Apparently many audiences didn’t care for Presence, which doesn’t come as a surprise for two reasons. First, the studio sold the movie as much more of a standard “scary flick” than it is.

Honestly, I’d be hard-pressed to point to anything actually frightening here – or all that creepy, really. The POV of the “Presence” creates a mildly unsettling vibe, but a lot of that comes from our training as movie viewers.

We’ve seen enough films to know that something’s amiss and bad events will theoretically eventually occur. This conditioning impacts our interpretation of what we see.

However, the ads promoted Presence as much more of a standard-issue scarefest. Confronted with something closer to Ordinary People than a traditional ghost story, many viewers clearly balked.

Also, Presence offers the definition of a “slow burn” movie, and one without a searing finale. Even when we get to the climax, it seems understated.

Again, this doesn’t act as a problem. Indeed, it feels refreshing to get an ostensible horror movie that doesn’t ladle out the cheap scares.

But it does ensure that many will become impatient with Presence. It just takes its own sweet time to go where it wants to go, and even when it arrives, it fails to deliver the usual horror jolts.

Presence really does work best if viewed as a family drama with some supernatural elements involved. It fares pretty well as we see the issues of the Paynes and how they attempt to cope.

None of this makes Presence a frightening or even particularly unsettling film. However, the haunting involved offers a twist on this particular dramatic genre and that allows it to succeed.

Presence appears in an aspect ratio of 1.78:1 on this Blu-ray Disc. No problems emerged via the movie’s visuals.

Sharpness looked good. A little softness impacted a few dimly-lit interiors, but the majority of the movie seemed accurate and concise.

Neither jaggies nor moiré effects materialized, and I saw no edge haloes. Source flaws also failed to manifest.

Like many Soderbergh flicks, Presence emphasized a heavily stylized palette, one that favored blue/teal and orange/amber as well as a few splashes of red. The Blu-ray developed these in an appropriate manner.

Blacks seemed deep and dense, while low-light shots displayed appealing clarity. All in all, this turned into a satisfying presentation.

Downconverted to Dolby TrueHD 7.1, the movie’s Dolby Atmos soundtrack offered a subdued affair. Most of the film concentrated on light ambience and music.

However, a few more violent supernatural sequences kicked the track to life a bit more actively. None of these made this a rock-em sock-em soundscape, but they added some pizzazz to the experience.

Audio quality appeared positive, with speech that remained natural and distinctive. Music sounded full and rich.

As noted, effects only sporadically packed some punch, but they remained accurate and showed good range. Ultimately, this became a subtle but effective mix.

The disc opens with an ad for The Monkey. We find no trailer for Presence or any other extras on the Blu-ray.

One wouldn’t expect Steven Soderbergh to make a traditional horror film, and Presence certainly veers from the usual scares. More a family drama with supernatural elements, it works best when viewed through that lens. The Blu-ray comes with very good visuals, subdued but appropriate audio, and no actual bonus features. While not a thrilling ride, Presence becomes an involving drama.