129. The Night; movie review

 

THE NIGHT

Cert 15

105 mins

BBFC advice: Contains strong psychological threat, bloody images

This is more like it - makers of a horror film who realise that fear is engendered by what can't be seen rather than blood and gore fests.

The Night is so creepy that I was genuinely uneasy after watching it.

It's the result of a fascinating and laudable collaboration between Iranian and American movie-makers and cleverly crosses cultures.

And it benefits from two stand-out performances by its leads, Shahab Hosseini and Niousha Noor as well as a deliciously wicked cameo by George Maguire.

Hosseini and Noor play Babak and Neda - a bickering couple who find themselves lost while driving home after a dinner party at their friends' home.

Under pressure with raging toothache and having had too many drinks, Babak decides to stop for the night at the Hotel Normandie where the pair are greeted by an oddball night receptionist (Maguire).

An eerie soundtrack leads us gradually down the path of dread as they prepare for bed.

When the couple are awoken by their baby in the middle of the night, they are progressively assaulted by noises and visions which become more and more terrifying.

But what we learn is that they are connected to secrets from the past which they have not confessed to each other.

I have become almost impervious to being scared by horror movies because, over the past ten years, I have seen most techniques aimed at unsettling audiences.

But director Kourosh Ahari has understood that less can be more when playing with the mind and also dares us to think about bad decisions of our own past.

He also conjures with every husband's worst fear - a threat to a wife and child.

The combination results in a horror which had me jumping around and worried about what I might encounter on our landing in the middle of the night.

Reasons to watch: Properly creepy horror

Reasons to avoid: Will make you jump

Laughs: None

Jumps: Five

Vomit: Retching

Nudity: None

Overall rating: 8/10

Did you know? In 2020, Shahab Hosseini co-founded Pol Media with director Kourosh Ahari and producer Alex Bretow, a distribution and production company aiming to "bridge the gap" between Iranian art, culture and cinema with that of the United States.

The final word. Shahab Hosseini: "What the movie was saying is that the things that we do in the past, as much as we try to forget them, they come to haunt us. Their shadow follows us and they create nightmares. And many of the nightmares that we are undergoing right now are things that have happened or the result of things that have happened in the past. " Nightmarish Conjurings

 

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