NIGHTWATCH (NATTEVAGTEN)
© 2001 Anchor Bay Entertainment

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NIGHTWATCH (NATTEVAGTEN)

A young student takes a job as a night watchman in a hospital morgue, starting off a whole string of events that conspire to unhinge him. When we first meet our rube he's dinning with his friends, drinking wine and making merry. Life seems fine - he's got a great girlfriend and a James Belushi-esque best friend. College and love is filling his time so he takes a job at a hospital as a night watchman in order to catch up on his studies. The relatively low-key environment is perfect for focused all-nighters.

However, things turn out to be a lot less low-key than he thought. First off, his best friend starts to get cold feet concerning his own girlfriend; he's afraid youth is slipping away and he'll lose some of his Belushi-esque ways. The solution? Get our hero to join him in a wild game of "If I ask you to do something, you'll do it, and vise versa, and the one who chickens out first will have to marry their respective girlfriend." Our little Einstein, who seems more than happy with his lady, for some reason figures this is something to go along with. His friend then begins to become creepier and creepier. Meanwhile at the job site, things aren't going too well. It seems that a rash of murders is somehow tying into the hospital and that someone might be toying with his mind - or worse, he's going crazy. Not helping out one bit, his friend has taken to sneaking into the hospital from time to time to surprise him. This, backed with the more and more outrageous challenges, help make his tours of duty a living hell. Next thing you know bodies are being moved around, his friend is challenging him to do the nasty with a prostitute, and, well, it just gets worse from there. Much worse.

Director/writer Ole Bornedal takes what could have been a run of the mill excursion in the suspense genre and milks it for all it's worth. He gets the most out of his actors, who never cross that fine line into hack, and sustains a real world atmosphere that enhances the proceedings. One feels, with a few reservations, that these are things that could actually happen: that you could actually work at a hospital morgue, find a body dragged down the hallway leaving a trail of muck, run off to complain, return with help, and find the area pristine and back to normal as if nothing had happened. O.K., that part is a stretch, but most of the rest of the film seems realistic. Bornedal injects the picture with black humor that gives the film a kick, heightening the tension. The only complaint is that once the culprit/culprits are revealed the movie degenerates a bit into the old "psycho holding hostages" routine. Still Bornedal does manage to squeak some nice and dark moments out of it.

Assisting Mr. Bornedal's work to no end is Dan Lausten's cinematography, which creates a suitably claustrophobic effect for this Ikea-furnished trip to Hell.

Anchor Bay, the DVD company to beat when it comes to excellent releases of cult titles, sticks to their usual high standard with NATTEVAGTEN. This is one clean print and transfer; enhanced for 16x9 TVs, the film looks great. The sound, which in this film is used to full effect, is given a strong 5.1 Dolby Digital mix - which will have you jumping out of your seat - and a more subdued 2.0 Dolby Surround mix, which while not providing quite the dynamics of the 5.1, will still have your pulse racing. The release is a bit scant on extras, but does feature commentary by Bornedal - which I don't want to say is boring, so I'll just shut up. Also included are the original theatrical trailer, which draws you in without giving away to much of the plot, animated menus, the original Danish language track, removable English subtitles, and liner notes.

If you're looking for a good knuckle biter and are not averse to subtitles, it's best you run to your local video store and rent yourself a DVD copy of NATTEVAGTEN. Your subsequent unhinged state will inform you, more than I, that you picked a winner.