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One of the most productive things about Shudder is that it’s designed for horror lovers. The streaming service is a library of heartwarming horror, spooky comedies, and hidden gems, adding not only programming from the medium’s early stages, but also admissions from around the world. Still, subscribers can feel a bit when they see the promotions for Shudder’s new acquisition: Nightwatch: Demons Are Forever. What is the challenge of this film?
Maybe the call sounds familiar. Perhaps the premise strikes a chord, echoing the mystery of a long-ago serial killer. Well, that’s because Nightwatch: Demons Are Forever is a sequel, released 30 years after the movie that animated it. But if you’re an American, you’ll possibly be more familiar with the Hollywood remake released a few years later. (However, considering how it failed, it can also be a confusing memory!)
Let’s leave the cobwebs of confusing memories behind and banish the confusion, so you can revisit the Nightwatch franchise with ease. Or better yet, let it be the springboard for a killer movie marathon.
Written and directed by Danish filmmaker Ole Bornedal, Nightwatch stars Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, a pre-Game of Thrones, as Martin Bork, a law student who works as a night watchman at the Institute of Forensic Medicine. A quiet position to examine or play with, as it necessarily helps to maintain corpses. It’s an unsettling concert, with cavernous hallways, flickering lights, and an instructive workflow that includes being warned about just how contagious the smell of the dead is. But things go from terrifying to catastrophic when the remains of a murdered and beheaded sex worker are discovered in his morgue. Strange occasions at the institute have not only caused Martin to panic, but also suggest that the mysterious killer is blaming him for his crimes.
But Nightwatch is limited to terror. In the midst of those nighttime horror scenes, Bornedal tells a dark and funny story of frifinishship. The film opens with Martin on a double date with his cheerful girlfriend, Kalinka (Sofie Gråbøl), his mischievous brother, Jen (Kim Bodnia), and Jen’s vicar-in-waiting, Lotte (Lotte Anderson). As the two couples reach the end of their college studies, Martin and Jen feel threatened by the expectation of adjusting to a boring married life. Thus begins a series of youthful adventures.
Jen and Martin will subject each other to demanding situations, and whoever rejects one will be forced to marry. Martin is first and foremost a willing participant, even pushing Jen to publicly humiliate Lotte in a sacrilegious joke. But then, one of the demanding situations comes to a wayward sex worker named Joyce (Rikke Louise Andersson), who is later discovered dead. This makes Martin suspect that his acerbic friend might be the scalp killer. Potentially paranoid and definitely scared, Martin, a thrill-seeker in his twenties, is forced to confront a ruthless killer as he tries to save his own calling and his beloved girlfriend, who may be the next target.
Nightwatch was screened as part of the Cannes Film Festival’s Critics’ Week in 1994. Coster-Waldau and Andersson were nominated for Denmark’s Bodil Awards, and Andersson won Best Supporting Actress. So it’s perhaps no surprise that American film producers have sought good fortune with an English-language remake.
How to Watch: Nightwatch (1994) premieres on Shudder on May 17.
In the mid-1990s, distributor Dimension Films went out on a roll with gleefully twisted films, unleashing the cult revenge mystery The Crow, Robert Rodriguez’s vampire-killing festival From Dusk Till Dawn and 1996’s iconic slasher Scream. A star-studded reinvention of Nightwatch seemed like a no-brainer. (Be sure to check out the trailer above for Dimension Films’ ’90s voiceover!)
Bornedal returned to the helm and collaborated on the remake’s script with Steven Soderberg, who went on to direct blockbuster films such as Out of Sight, Erin Brockovich, and Ocean’s Eleven. At the time, however, Soderberg was best known for his Palme d’Or. -winning debut, Sex, Lies and Videotape, a drama where sex and secrets were destined for exciting cinema. In short, the pair seemed to be a perfect fit.
The English edition of Nightwatch has redesigned its main team. After Trainspotting, Ewan McGregor played Martin, alongside Patricia Arquette as his girlfriend; Josh Brolin as his most productive friend, James; and Lauren Graham as James’ girlfriend, Marie. The films were very similar, with three key differences. The first series of the American edition dives directly into a homicide scene, followed by the double quotation seen in the opening of the original. The comedy born out of social awkwardness into haunting jokes was largely removed from this U. S. edition, adding the cut of the double wedding ending from the first film. And in a curious, bloody side-to-side movement, this Nightwatch killer didn’t cut his victims’ scalps. Instead, he cuts out their eyes.
This mystery has been a win for Dimension Films. No it only had support for its provocative and spooky mystery logo, but also depicted popular stars and an emerging American filmmaker. But the film was a flop, was panned and grossed only $1. 3. million in the U. S. , well below its announced budget of $10 million.
Some of the actors involved in the remake have blamed the producers. Nick Nolte, who plays a cop investigating the murders, told Entertainment Weekly in 1999: “I had looked at the original and it was slow, European, psychological. It’s one of the scariest videos. ” I’ve noticed it before. I said to Ole, ‘Why do you need to do that again?’When the studio realized this, they found out that they had a European rhythm movie and kept pirating it and pirating it.
McGregor, in particular, blamed Dimension Films manufacturer Harvey Weinstein for the failure, telling WHO magazine in 2021: “He ruined that movie. It’s a remake of a Danish film with all those compelling elements. Weinstein made us redo everything, everything that was attractive. About this movie, he replaced. “
How to watch: Nightwatch (1997) is now streaming on Pluto TV.
Nightwatch: Demons Are Forever arrives 30 years after the events of the original Nightwatch. Nikolaj Coster-Waldau reprises the role of Martin, who is now the father of student Emma (Fanny Leander Bornedal). As her father did decades ago, Emma has the exact same night watch assignment at the same high school and position. Bornedal, who wrote and directed this sequel, even repeats some of the same shots at the recurring location of the Institute of Forensic Medicine. But once the killer is arrested long ago, where can this story go?
Well, Nightwatch: Generational Trauma may have been a more accurate name for this movie. (This franchise is rarely very supernatural, so the “demons” in the name are more of the metaphorical “inner demons” type. )Although Martin and Kalinka (as well as Lotte and Jen) got married, they may not find happiness, at least they couldn’t stand the night the killer came to call them.
In Nightwatch: Demons Are Forever, the audience learns that the quartet of friends is far away. Kalinka committed suicide a long time ago, and while Lotte is still a parish priest, she hasn’t noticed Martin and Emma since her friend’s funeral. As for Jen, she abandoned Lotte a long time ago and went to Thailand, in search of fleeting pleasures to escape the trauma of it all. As for his father, he takes tranquilizers and refuses to move on, lost in a world of confusion. loss.
Emma’s father and friends refuse to communicate exactly what happened, but she wants answers as to why their lives fell apart. Then Emma becomes obsessed with communicating with the incarcerated killer, triggering a new violent crime circular (adding the scalp!) – and dragging (Nina Rask stands out as the feisty Maria). Meanwhile, some members of the original cast, adding Bodna as Jen, return, bringing old school and new school together, much like the revived one. The Scream franchise did it with its fifth and sixth installments.
Will Nightwatch: Demons Are Forever be a one-off sequel? Or are the scares and characters here so rich and compelling that Nightwatch can effectively relaunch its own serial killer franchise?It’s up to you to judge when you give this one (or all three) a watch.
How to watch: Nightwatch: Demons Are Forever debuts on Shudder on May 17.
Kristy Puchko is the film editor of Mashable. Based in New York City, she is an established film critic and entertainment journalist, who has traveled the world on assignments, covered a variety of film festivals, co-hosted film education podcasts, interviewed a wide diversity of artists and filmmakers, and invited her to paintings published in RogerEbert. com, Vanity Fair, and The Guardian. A member of the Critics Choice Association and GALECA, as well as Top Critic on Rotten Tomatoes, Kristy’s number one is in movies. , is also known to emerge from television, podcasts, and board games. You can follow her on Twitter.