"I always operate the camera, but this was next level," the director says. "I’m really in there with the actors."

Steven Soderbergh often applies his brainy, process-based approach to new genres; with Presence, he tries his hand at ghost-story horror.

Often the camera operator on his own films, the Oscar-winning director of "Traffic" had an idea for a first-person horror movie, one that required some stamina.

Hollywood’s most successful rogue spoke to the Globe about his new haunted-house thriller and the state of the industry he helped build

Doing his own camerawork, the director gleefully enriches the haunted-house genre with a simple but ingenious device.

“Presence” is a beautifully executed vision of a rather mediocre script. What makes it interesting is the POV “gimmick,” which Soderbergh demonstrates as a legitimate mode of cinematic storytelling. His camera movements take on such a human quality that we become emotionally connected to it as another character in the story.

Presence holds its audience close with a nifty conceit in which Soderbergh is the eyes and ears of those watching and of his cast. May the adventurous, restless filmmaker keep on tinkering

The acclaimed director delivers a new spin on the haunted house film which makes for an eerily effective mystery

The writer teams with Steven Soderbergh on this haunting story with a twist: The entire film is shot from the point-of-view of the ghost.