People Are Overlooking 2025’s Best Haunted House Movie

Despite being near the beginning of 2025, it’s hard to imagine another haunted house movie coming out this year that creates the same visceral impact that Steven Soderbergh‘s Presence does. The family dynamics and how those familial connections work as a throughline from beginning to end make for a powerful dramatic tone balanced with the single-setting psychological horror that mostly comes from the human element but is heightened by the ghost’s viewpoint. Written by David Koepp and directed by Steven Soderbergh, Presence follows a teenage Chloe (Callina Liang), her older brother, Tyler (Eddy Maday), and her parents, Rebekah (Lucy Liu) and Chris (Chris Sullivan). After the deaths of two girls Chloe knew from supposed overdoses, the family moves into a new house, unaware there is a ghost haunting the property.

The entire movie is filmed from the ghost’s point of view, making Presence an emotionally intense experience; the POV makes you feel like you’re in the room with the characters, which amplifies the response to stressful scenes. Everyone expected Presence to be traditionally scary, similar to other ghost movies or haunted house films. Part of what makes the movie unique — beyond Soderbergh’s use of point of view and perspective — is that it subverts expectations through two surprising and satisfying twists. Understanding the reveal of the ghost’s identity at the end and its significance to the larger story is key to appreciating the story Koepp and Soderbergh created.

WARNING: Spoilers below for Presence

The Ghost’s Identity Explained

When Rebekah is saying her final goodbyes to the haunted home while grieving her son, Tyler, who died at the house while protecting his sister from her boyfriend, Ryan (West Mulholland) — he turns out to be a disturbed murderer responsible for killing Chloe’s friends in the film’s first major twist — she steps in front of an antique mirror that came with the home. As the ghost hovers behind her, we finally see Tyler’s face appear in the reflection, and Rebekah sees him as well. Immediately understanding, she begins screaming for her son; as Chloe and Chris rush in to comfort Rebekah, she essentially explains through her cries how Tyler’s ghost stayed in the house to ensure his living self could save Chloe when the time came. With his unfinished business taken care of, Tyler’s spirit ascends from the house, and he passes on.

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Based on the response, not every member of the audience understood what the appearance of Tyler’s ghost in the mirror at the end meant. Some left the theater confused as to why Presence ended without explaining who the ghost was. However, the reveal of Tyler in the mirror at the end is the second major twist: he was the ghost the whole time, and he was haunting the new home until the time came when the ghost version of Tyler needed to be around in order to wake up his living self so the teenager could save Chloe from being murdered by Ryan. It’s bittersweet, knowing that Tyler was able to protect his sister but still died along with Ryan when he tackles him through Chloe’s bedroom window and they fall to their deaths.

There are subtle clues carefully placed throughout by Koepp and Soderbergh about the ghost’s identity that not only make the twist at the end hit harder but will reward viewers on every rewatch. Sometimes, the hints don’t stand out as much (but they will when seeing the movie a second time), such as when Chris yells at Tyler during an argument that he needs to stand up for his sister for once. There’s also the scene when Chloe is hooking up with Ryan, and the ghost clearly doesn’t want to see this, turning away from the scene while hiding in the closet. The ghost also shows care for Chloe, such as when he picks up her books and piles them neatly on her desk, and shows anger at himself at one point by wrecking his bedroom when the alive Tyler is being mean to his sister. Chloe, while nervous about the paranormal presence, seemingly senses the ghost means her no harm and assumes it’s the spirit of her dead friend.

Then, there’s the scene when a psychic and her husband are invited to offer assistance once the rest of the family is convinced the house is haunted. During the visit, they learn that time works differently in the spirit world. This is one of the most significant clues prepping audiences for the upcoming twist about Tyler. The narrative establishes that ghosts don’t experience time in the linear fashion that living people do. Hence, when it’s revealed that Tyler has been the ghost watching his family even before his death, the explanation for how he has essentially moved through time has already been explained and foreshadowed.

Some of the horror of the movie comes from the unsettling feeling of not knowing the ghost’s agenda or whether it means the family harm as it continues to observe them. However, it’s the scene where Ryan drugs Chloe and creepily reveals he is a killer that catapults Presence from a complicated family drama into real terror. Ghost Tyler watches up close as Ryan slowly tortures and suffocates Chloe as he monologues about his previous killings. Thanks to the closeness and intimacy of the scene, you can’t help but feel like you are watching an actual murder of a young girl take place. Luckily, ghost Tyler is able to wake himself up to save Chloe just in time, but following the harrowing scene with Rebekah screaming for her son after seeing him in the mirror leaves you feeling emotionally raw and possibly with a few goosebumps.

Presence has so far been unfairly underrated by audiences and is a good reminder that a haunted house movie doesn’t have to be full of scares throughout in order to be an effectively powerful and memorable film within the genre. Anticipation, the unknown, a clever point of view, and human nature were far more compelling than unnecessary jump scares.

Presence is now playing in theaters.

What did you think of the movie? Let us know in the comments below!