‘Nightwatch’ Is A Master Class in Tension [Watch]

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This week’s pick is a film I wish I would have experienced sooner. I took in Nightwatch for the first time not long ago and have been kicking myself for sleeping on it for so long. I’m not being hyperbolic when I say this may be the scariest film I’ve featured on The Overlooked Motel to date. Writer/director Ole Bornedal creates tension you could cut with a knife while steadily building to one of the most intense conclusions committed to film.

Nightwatch plays out like this:

The film follows Martin (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau), a law student who takes a job as an overnight security guard at the local morgue. Martin is leery of the setting but likes the idea of having time to study while he’s on the clock. During his tenure at the mortuary, Martin meets a homicide detective investigating a string of murders involving sex workers. As the body count rises, Martin begins to look a lot like a suspect. He sets out to clear his name but winds up tangled in a sadistic game of cat and mouse.

Bornedal (The Possession) made Nightwatch very early in his career as a filmmaker, yet it remains his best work to date. He effectively establishes the mortuary setting as a revolting and terrifying place. Don’t get me wrong, most films don’t go out of their way to make such a backdrop inviting. But Bornedal properly establishes the locale as a hellscape straight out of a nightmare. As the viewer tours the location alongside the lead character Martin, repulsion sets in. If the sight of cadavers lined up in long rows doesn’t unsettle you, the grimy set pieces and outgoing night watchman breathing his putrid breath into Martin’s face will likely make you recoil in discomfort. And that’s just the first 15 minutes.

The discomfort continues as we watch the outgoing watchmen brief young Martin on the sordid history of the facility. Before his orientation ends, Martin learns that the very morgue where he’s now employed is home to an unseemly scandal that unfolded years prior. A scandal involving a former night watchman who violated the bodies of the recently deceased in unspeakable ways. Quite the warm welcome, indeed.

Bornedal makes the central location especially uninviting thanks to impressive technical prowess. He plays with darkness and light, ensuring the locale reads as sufficiently ominous whether cloaked in light or shrouded in darkness. Brighter sequences are lit to bathe the corridors in an eerie glow, making the mortuary feel clinical and sterile. The lowlight shots invoke an equally unsettling reaction, looking dark, ominous, and off-putting.

The writer/director also effectively uses an ominous string score to keep the viewer ill at ease. Some of the string sounds are reminiscent of a knife moving across a sharpening stone. The percussive beats mimic the pounding of a pulse. Rapid and urgent.

Bornedal also employs a variety of camera tricks to unsettle the viewer. He uses shots that start wide and gradually narrow the focus as if the walls are closing in on us.

Even the comedy is frightening in Nightwatch.

Nightwatch doesn’t even offer a reprieve from the tension when the narrative takes the occasional comedic turn. No, the flick has a properly sadistic sense of humor. So much so that even the banter between the characters and the gags often read as ominous. Usually, comedic asides give us an escape from the narrative. Here, there is simply no escape.

Sadistic humor aside, I’d like to call attention to Bornedal’s script. It is a work of genius. He gives us enough information to piece together the killer’s identity but leaves breadcrumbs likely to point the average viewer in the wrong direction. If you guess the identity of the killer, bravo to you. But I certainly didn’t see the reveal coming.

Speaking of Bornedal’s screenplay, I connected with the giallo-esque tactics he employs (and elevates) here. The killer is ultimately revealed to be someone familiar to the viewer. And the protagonist is a man working to clear his name. The same two conceits are present in the vast majority of giallo pictures. The key difference between Nightwatch and the gialli of years past is that Bornedal gives us all the information we need to put the pieces together. But through a bit of cinematic sorcery, he makes us look left and then sways to the right. Giallo films rarely cast any suspicion on the actual perpetrator. Typically, gialli directs suspicion toward nearly everyone but the actual antagonist. Bornedal’s approach, however, delivers a well-crafted twist ending that won’t leave you feeling cheated.

Nightwatch has ample replay value.

Going back and watching the film for a second time reinforces how smart the screenplay really is. In doing so, the seasoned viewer has the chance to pick up on all the seemingly innocuous contextual clues they likely missed via their inaugural outing.

Bornedal remade the film for US audiences in 1997. The redux isn’t half bad. But the original is the superior effort. In addition to a remake, a sequel also exists. The follow-up is also written and directed by Bornedal and it’s a must-see for fans of the original.

All in all…

Nightwatch is a master class in tension-building that’ll keep you guessing up until the jaw-dropping conclusion. Writer/director Ole Bornedal shows a prowess for establishing an atmosphere that would have made Hitchcock proud. Both the 1994 original and the 2023 sequel are available to stream on Shudder as of the publication of this post.

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