Steven Soderbergh’s genre-bending supernatural thriller Presence provides an experimental look at a haunted house from the perspective of the ghost doing the haunting, culminating with a shocking reveal of the ghost’s true nature. Now playing in theaters, Presence chronicles a family’s move into a new house through the eyes of a mysterious enтιтy that is already in the house when they move in. It’s revealed that each key character in Presence’s cast is dealing with their own sources of anxiety, especially the daughter, Chloe (Callina Liang), who is dealing with the recent overdose deaths of two of her friends.

The enтιтy’s interference in the house escalates as more information is revealed about each member of the family, but the enтιтy is revealed to be protective over Chloe in particular. Chloe eventually begins a relationship in secret with Ryan, her brother Tyler’s friend and seemingly one of the popular athletes in the school district. Ryan’s motives are revealed to be nefarious, as he attempts to drug Chloe in her room (to Sєxually ᴀssault her, as it’s implied) before the enтιтy knocks her drugged beverage onto the floor.

The tension in the house ramps up until parents Rebekah and Chris leave for the weekend on a work trip, which prompts Chloe to invite Ryan over to stay the night. Ryan drugs her brother Tyler so that he and Chloe can have uninterrupted time together, and that’s when the terror truly begins. Ryan convinces Chloe to drink a drugged glᴀss of alcohol to help her relax, and his true motivations are finally revealed, leading to a stunning and climactic confrontation with the enтιтy in the house before its idenтιтy is finally revealed.

The Ghost’s Idenтιтy In Presence Fully Explained

There Were Slight Clues Before The Shocking Final Reveal

In the final scene of the movie, Rebekah (Lucy Liu) takes a moment to herself in the house after the family has packed everything away as they move out, and finally becomes aware of the enтιтy. She follows it into the living room and stands in front of the antique silver mirror, where the enтιтy is revealed to be her son Tyler (Eddy Maday), who had died tackling Ryan (West Mulholland) out of the second-floor window in the process of saving his sister’s life. Rebekah screams in anguish and grief and falls to the ground, yelling that he “came back to save her.”

While Chloe believed the ghost to be the spirit of her ᴅᴇᴀᴅ friend Nadia, it’s implied that it was in fact Tyler the entire time. The medium, Lisa, provides some measure of explanation when she first visits the house, as she and her husband note that in her experience as a person with “second sight”, ghosts or enтιтies like the one in the house often don’t have any knowledge of who they are, why they manifested, or what time period they are in.

They can be displaced in time, and Lisa later notes that the ghost appears to be present because of something that has not yet happened, but is coming. She also notes that it has to do with a window, but can provide no other insight. When the ghost desperately wakes the drugged Tyler at the end of Presence, it’s implied that is when it first became aware of its own purpose and idenтιтy, and knew that Tyler needed to die so that the ghost could be created to wake him.

It’s a mind-melting paradox that’s only fully understandable once the audience knows the ghost’s idenтιтy. Upon a second glance, there are clues throughout about the ghost’s idenтιтy, most notably its protectiveness over Chloe and the fact that it angrily destroys Tyler’s room when he’s regaling the family with his cruel prank on his classmate Simone. The ghost is a guilty version of Tyler himself, tethered only to the emotions and connections from his mortal life; he feels angry at himself for his cruelty, and he feels protective over his sister due to how distant and mean he was to her.

Presence’s Serial Killer Twist Explained

The Real Evil Was Never The Ghost

Tyler’s friend Ryan comes across as suspicious from his first introduction, and when his motivations are first revealed (when he drugs Chloe’s drink in her room), he appears to be a sick individual who habitually Sєxually ᴀssaults girls, given how practiced and prepared he is in drugging Chloe. Sharp audience members can pick up on the connection between Ryan drugging Chloe and the drug overdoses of her friends. However, when he finally succeeds in drugging both Ryan and Chloe, his true nature is revealed.

Ryan was more than indirectly involved in the death of Chloe’s two friends; on the contrary, their deaths were actually murders at his hands. Ryan is revealed to be a serial killer who drugged both girls before smothering them in their pᴀssed-out state. To a coroner, it appeared as if the girls’ breath had given out as a result of the drugs interacting with their systems, which is why he was able to get away with it. He attempts to do the very same to Chloe before Tyler’s ghost wakes his corporeal form to save her life and kill Ryan.

How Tyler’s Ghost Is Around Before He Dies

The Medium Lisa Provides A Brief Explanation

As someone who has had a psychic gift for her entire life, Lisa describes some general notes from her experiences with enтιтies when Chris (Chris Sullivan) invites her into the home for the first time. She claims that the ghost may not even be aware of who or what it is, or when in time it is located. They can be from the past, present, or future, and have a purpose that they may not be entirely aware of. In the case of Tyler, the ghost is his future ᴅᴇᴀᴅ self sent back in time to inhabit the house to protect his sister from Ryan.

The metaphysical paradox of a ghost essentially acting to ensure its own future creation is never examined in any particular depth, and it’s not intended to be. The point is not the pseudo-science behind the ghost’s origin, but rather the potency of Tyler’s guilt and need to atone for the cruelty he had wrought both on his sister and others. The actual time travel mechanics don’t need to be explained. In fact, Tyler’s ghost can be seen as a manifestation of his guilt and regret, so it’s as if two versions of himself exist at the same time.

Why Each Member Of The Family Is So Tense

Each Person Has Their Own Source Of Stress

Because the story is told in broken fragments, there are a lot of clues about story and character details, but the full picture is rarely revealed for anything. Each member of the family has their own particular stressor, which is why the tension in the house is so high at all times. Rebekah is involved with something illegal at work; it’s likely fraud or embezzlement, as she is frantic to close on the house and drunkenly explains to Tyler that you can “go too far for the ones you love.”

Chris is aware of his wife’s illicit activities, and appears close to ending their marriage, as indicated by his call for legal advice about a spouse’s culpability in their partner’s legal troubles. Selfish and cruel, Tyler is mostly concerned with his own social standing, and how his sister’s grief and odd behavior impacts that. Chloe is still dealing with the grief of losing her best friend, which causes her to become withdrawn and isolated, an additional source of concern for Chris. Add all that up, and the family is at a boiling point when they move into the haunted house.

What Steven Soderbergh Has Said About Presence’s Ending

The Director Provided Some Insight Into The Twist

With such a unique style of filmmaking and camera perspective, insight from director Steven Soderbergh is particularly valuable when it comes to breaking down Presence. In an interview with Rue Morgue, Soderbergh spoke about how difficult it is to actually place Presence within a neat genre line, because the movie and ending don’t necessarily provide the scares that one would typically ᴀssociate with straight horror.

To me, it’s a drama that happens to use a ghost as the Trojan horse to show you a portrait of this family in distress. I didn’t go into it thinking I wanted to make a movie in that genre; to me, this seemed to be an interesting way to show a family coming apart.

In that sense, Presence is more of a family drama than a horror movie. With that said, Soderbergh also took note of the palpable dread wrought by that dysfunctional family dynamic, and how much more powerful it makes the movie’s ending.

It’s kind of a tragedy, in a way, because the mother feels so close to her son that she’s really not paying attention to what’s happening with her daughter. And it’s clear, early on in the film, that the presence is very focused on Chloe, and is very protective of her, and part of the dread that starts to build as the movie goes on is your understanding that something bad is going to happen, and it’s probably going to happen to her.

Even though Presence does not offer the kind of clarity that allows it to be placed into neat genre lines, that fusion of family drama and supernatural foreboding is really what brings it into the realm of horror. The themes explored by the narrative certainly align with those typically found in horror movies, as do the shocking reveals about both Ryan and the ghost’s idenтιтies. Horror elements can be found throughout the movie, even if they aren’t completely overt.

The Real Meaning Of Presence’s Ending

The Movie Is Rife With Themes Of Trauma, Grief, And Love

At its core, Presence is an examination of the persistence of trauma and grief, and the far-reaching impacts of how they are dealt with. Chloe’s sensitivity to the ghost is immediate because she has known real trauma with the death of her friend Nadia. The rest of her family isn’t as in tune until they see physical damage being done by the ghost. Rebekah finally being able to see Tyler at the end also relates back to what Lisa told them about ghosts in the first place: Rebekah finally experienced real trauma from Tyler’s death, so she can see it.

Conversely, Presence also emphasizes the importance of loving and reaching out to those who are going through something difficult, and how that can sometimes be the only thing that can truly bring peace. Tyler’s ghost rising to the sky at the end of the movie implies that his soul is at rest, and Chloe has some semblance of peace from knowing what really happened to her friends, and knowing the person responsible can’t hurt her or anyone else. Rebekah ends the movie consumed by grief, her reward for remaining distant from Chloe when she most needed her.

Source: Rue Morgue