Parents' Guide to Nightborn

This follow up to director Hanna Bergholm's 2022 debut feature Hatching is a less nuanced film that goes heavy on the blood and light on the subtlety. The dread of motherhood is the metaphor hammered home in various ways in Nightborn, a folk horror/body horror hybrid that's enjoyable enough, but not particularly innovative. Of the things that do work, Haarla's central performance makes the movie—the actor going all-in, even in the more ridiculous scenes. Another place is the atmospheric settings—the fairy tale-like woods, which are foreboding from the get-go, and the home that seems to take on an equal life of its own, shrouded in shadows and never quite strong enough to keep the surrounding forces of nature out. At one point Saga says "as you shout, so will the forest answer," and the sound design also stands out with its creaking trees and gurgling/growling baby-monster. But, elsewhere the script feels stilted, the setups contrived enough to leave very few surprises, and there's a sense of throwing everything at it, hoping something sticks. Toward the end it descends into the ridiculous and nothing seems to quite flow or feel natural. There's enough here to like to keep viewers watching, and those who aren't squeamish may revel in the more gory scenes, but many will find this a disappointing sibling to Bergholm's promising first offering.