A folk tale. A Greek myth. A local tragedy. They have more in common than they don’t in The Midnight Swim, a tense, Gothic drama about loss and family.

Dr. Amelia Brooks (Beth Grant) has loved Iowa’s Spirit Lake for as long as anyone can remember. So, when she dies on one of her dives into it, no one is surprised that she died doing what she loved. Survived by her three daughters, Amelia’s legacy lives on in the way the legacies of complicated mother-daughter relationships often do: not through tears and grief, but through laughter about the good times and angry outbursts over the bad.

Documenting the trip back home to settle their mother’s affairs is youngest sister June (Lindsay Burdge). Hiding behind her camera, June is rarely seen when she isn’t by herself. As the youngest, she doesn’t share the sometimes traumatic memories of their mother that older sisters Annie (Jennifer Lafleur) and Isa (Aleksa Palladino) do. Instead, she follows them as they reminisce and attempt to settle their mother’s affairs. And, with neighbor Josh (Ross Partridge) in tow, summon legendary ghosts.

As the memories of their mother give way to increasing tension, June, caught in the middle, begins to fray, going for midnight swims in the lake with no one but her camera for company. Dead birds and a red scarf fished from the lake appear like omens, and no one seems to care but June, who might just be taking her mother’s death harder than anyone thought.

The Midnight Swim is hard to call outright horror, but more of a Gothic tragedy in the tradition of Shirley Jackson. As Eleanor Vance in The Haunting of Hill House can’t truly escape her mother even after her mother’s death, so too are the Brooks sisters haunted by their mother. The narrative may plod along in places and skip around in others, but at the end, every piece falls into place, and the true terror is in how inevitable the end truly was.

There’s a subtle, sad beauty in The Midnight Swim. Real-life couple Lafleur and Partridge are perfect as childhood sweethearts reviving an old flame. Burdge’s subtle performance is in many ways the opposite of the role she played as Sadie in The Invitation. And Palladino’s background in drama shines through as middle sister Isa Brooks. Folk tales and mythology weave their way through the story, weaving webs between water and stars, mothers and sisters, science and legend. And a Turkish lullaby connects beginning, middle, and end in a way that’s artistic, if not straightforward.

If you like subtle, tragic horror, 2014’s The Midnight Swim is one to check out. It’s not particularly scary at any point, and sometimes feels a little disjointed, but it’s worth the watch. I think Shirley Jackson would’ve enjoyed it.

7.5 Out of 10