Nightborn is a film carried entirely by a leading performance so good that it almost makes you forget how middling everything else is. It is director Hanna Bergholm's follow-up to Hatching, released in 2022, with many of the same elements, but it feels like leftovers of a richer, more satisfying meal.
Saga (Seidi Haarla) and her husband, Jon (Rupert Grint), move to the Finnish countryside in anticipation of their firstborn. Their house is the one where Saga was raised, now left in ruin and overgrown by the looming forest surrounding it. As the couple settles in, Saga gives birth, and all should be right in the world.
But something is wrong with the child, at least in Saga's eyes. He is violent and moody, and refuses Saga's approaches except to feed with bloodthirsty glee. Everyone else thinks Saga is overreacting or has difficulty adjusting to motherhood. Even her own mother (Pirkko Saisio) dismisses Saga's concerns, pointing out that she, too, was a monster as a child.
At first, Bergholm's moody directing and script, co-written with Ilja Rautsi, work in the story's favor. There's an unease in the anticipation that only grows as the couple clears out old memories and forgotten trinkets left behind by past generations. All the folklore stuff is mostly a mishmash of whatever works from both Finnish and other Nordic ancestry. But it gives a nice foundation for what's to follow.
It's once the baby arrives that Nightborn loses its way. It picks up elements from Rosemary's Baby, Hereditary, and numerous other – better – films, and tosses them in with some unexplored elements of changeling folklore to lesser effect.
Historically, changeling myths were used as excuses for the horrific treatment of neurodiverse children, and every time Nightborn leans into the suggestion that perhaps Saga too was different as a child, and now masks to hide her true nature, the implications leave a nasty aftertaste.
On top of that, Nightborn can't seem to decide what it wants to say about any of its numerous topics. One reading is that Saga suffers from postpartum depression, and how even Jon's casual frustration with her becomes an attack when repeated long enough. Another is the threat of forced Christianity onto children, as the patriarchal family members demand to give the child a deeply religious name, which Saga rejects in favor of a wild naturalistic one like Kuura.
Or, perhaps it's about Saga herself, a spirit broken by modern society, masking her way through life until motherhood to a free spirit brings her back in touch with her roots. There are elements to support any reading, yet none have enough material to provide a satisfying picture. Saarla, to her credit, is a force of nature and salvages even the weakest parts of the script. She finely channels Toni Collette's devastating turn in Hereditary, giving us a window into Saga's fears and growing resentment at the dismissals around her.
Yet this is not Nightbitch, nor is it another Die, My Love, and Nightborn skirts around any decisive point of view for so long that it simply runs out of time. When the finale hits, it lands with an unenthusiastic thud. It's certainly an ending, but to describe it as anything but perfunctory would be a lie.
Apart from Saarla, there are still genuine reasons to give Nightborn a chance. Even lesser folk horror can be interesting, and such is the case here, too. The audio design, complete with an incessant wailing, is tremendously effective. The cinematography makes the most of the limited sets and budget, and there's a charming sequence involving sentient shrubbery that made me very happy.
There's no question that Bergholm is a talented director, and I can't wait to see what she does next. Nightborn has its moments; they just don't come together when they need to.
Nightborn premieres on Shudder July 31st. It was screened at the BIFAN Film Festival.
