Nightmare review.
Shudder offers up a good Norwegian folk horror film with a strong lead performance, some fun ideas and not enough ambition.
New movie reviews will not contain spoilers.
Nightmare
Directed by Kjersti Helen Rasmussen
Written by Kjersti Helen Rasmussen
Starring Eili Harboe, Herman Tømmeraas and Dennis Storhøi
Nightmare Review
The tagline for the new Shudder release Nightmare reads “Not all nightmares are over when you wake up”. It’s a perfect description of the story. Nightmare (or Marerittet in its native Norwegian language) is about a nightmare that never stops. Whether it be the confusion of knowing when the dream has begun or ended…or the toll it takes on its lead character…the movie has a title as fitting as its tagline. It also has a double meaning. Mare, here, is a demon that attacks you through your dreams. Its goal is to be born into reality…and it will stop at nothing to make sure that happens.
Mona (Eili Harboe) and Robby (Herman Tømmeraas) move into a new apartment. The building hides a secret that Mona will soon learn about…in her dreams. Unable to determine when she is awake and when she is dreaming…every moment of Mona’s life becomes a nightmare. A demon called Mare haunts her dreams in Robby’s shape. Mare wants to use Mona to be born into reality. Something that the women in the building, past and present, know about all too well.
So…the plot is interesting. It’s also basically A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child. It takes it much more seriously than that movie…but the similarities are unmistakable. Both stories deal with a lead character unable to control or even decipher when they are trapped in a nightmare. It should be a spoiler to tell you that, like Alice in The Dream Child, Mona becomes pregnant. Mare’s mission depends on it happening. Whereas Alice’s problems were derived from her unborn baby dreaming Freddy Kreuger into existence…Mona’s is much more grounded. She doesn’t want to be a mother.
The parts of Nightmare that work the best involve Mona’s slow descent into madness. Even when she’s awake she is stuck inside a personal hell of isolation, sadness, and fear of being pregnant. When that fear is confirmed, she opts to end the pregnancy. Unfortunately, Mare doesn’t give up so easily. Mona learns that she isn’t the only person in the building going through this seemingly unique hell. Neighbors and new parents David (Preben Hodneland) and Siren (Gine Therese Grønner) are working through their own. Watching the couple destruct in the background of Mona’s story sets the stakes very high to wake up from her nightmare.
Nightmare uses all the dream tricks it can think of. Sleep paralysis, sleepwalking, lucid dreaming…whatever it can do to blur the lines between reality and Mona’s nightmare world. It’s effective. It also isn’t quite enough. Everything Nightmare incorporates into its story works. It just falls short of having enough ideas to sustain a feature length film. It leaves you in a weird place where you like what it’s doing…you’d just like it more in an hour-long format.
Nightmare’s answer is to introduce a sleep clinic (named Somnia…of course) for Mona to learn how to control her dreams. It makes narrative sense. It also moves the focus away from Mona’s incredibly isolated and personal journey into madness and opens the movie up instead of drilling down. Frankly, it’s a choice that a story makes when they need a second idea and can’t find an internal one. Not bad…just not the direction it should be heading.
Harboe carries the movie with a realistic portrayal of fear, loneliness and, ultimately, madness. Watching Mona slip further from a reality she can no longer find is the part of Nightmare that works best. She’s supported by a fine cast of largely underdeveloped characters. That’s not a complaint. Mona’s story is so personal that periphery characters shouldn’t have a spotlight over it. Which is why the Somnia sleep institute feels like a misstep.
For all its strengths and weaknesses…Nightmare does end with a bang. Not the confusing and prolonged climax…the actual end of the movie. The final scene provides the biggest chill in the story. It leaves you feeling a way that you wish the movie had been able to do more often and far earlier. Still, a great finish is a great finish. You’re more likely to think highly of something when it leaves you at its peak.
For anyone who enjoys movies about dreams intruding on reality (cough…The Dream Child), Nightmare is a good one. A strong performance and some fun tricks eventually get you to a memorable finish. There are too many missed opportunities and one unnecessary detour along the way for it to become anything more, however.
Scare Value
Nightmare is one of those cases where a movie succeeds at what it’s trying to do…but it isn’t trying to do enough. The result is a good film. Nothing more, nothing less. Not knowing when or if Mona is dreaming leads to some fun moments…but there is no second idea here. It may play better as a character drama than as a horror story. A top-notch final scene allows Nightmare to end on a high note.
3/5
Nightmare Link
Streaming on Shudder
