A family of four move into their new home. Their daughter Chloe (Callina Liang) is grieving the death of one of her friends, and comes to suspect that her friend’s spirit may be haunting the house.

Presence is a supernatural thriller written by David Koepp, the noted Hollywood screenwriter who wrote arguably one of the all-time best films in this genre. 1999’s Stir of Echoes, which Koepp also directed, remains a personal favourite. It puts a lot of pressure on Presence to succeed. The crucial innovation in this case is that director Steven Soderbergh shoots the film from the point of view of whatever apparition haunts the house. Scenes play out in largely long, uninterrupted takes. A wide-angle lens gives the scenes a floating, otherworldly feel.

It is an interesting idea, and ultimately it makes for a very enjoyable supernatural thriller, but the film struggles to present a singular, unified identity. It is very much a case of two Presences. The first is a straightforward ghost story, with well-defined characters and a twist-and-turn plot that withholds important information until it is most effective to reveal it. The second is not in Koepp’s script but Soderbergh’s direction of it. The viewer observes the action as a silent participant, but they do so without context. They are not informed of the ghost’s origins or identity, and as such it becomes challenging to identify with their point of view. The limited ability for the viewer to observe the action – the ghost cannot leave the house – does function in a similarly suspenseful way to found footage, but at the same time it feels more intellectually intriguing that emotionally engaging.

It is a difficult combination of elements to comfortably watch. That the two sides actually work together feels like a minor miracle, but it also feels as if this is a trick that is only going to work once.

Callina Liang is very effective as grieving teenager Chloe. Chris Sullivan is also excellent, playing Chloe’s sympathetic father. Less successful, albeit through no fault of their own, are Lucy Liu and Eddy Maday as Chloe’s unsupportive mother and brother. Here the screenplay is the one letting the piece down, even more so when it comes to Chloe’s love interest Ryan (West Mulholland). His characterisation seems way off, and while his behaviour later in the film works broadly in a sensationalist manner it almost entirely lacks realism.

It is the experimental nature of Presence that makes it work. Were it reliant solely on Koepp’s writing it would collapse under the weight of its own absurdity. Were it purely based on Soderbergh’s direction it would feel much too dry and emotionally active to seem convincing. Balanced between the two, and it is weirdly engaging stuff. The best parts stick in the memory; thankfully the lesser elements tend to slide off and get forgotten.