Parents' Guide to Nightwatch: Demons Are Forever

Following similar story beats to the first film, this bloody thriller sequel tries to get mileage out of similar elements but with average results. There are good aspects of Nightwatch: Demons Are Forever, despite its title. For one, the performance of the director's daughter (Fanny Leander Bornedal) is very strong and assured, and she can easily hold down a film. Also, the first third of the movie manages to be mysterious, curious, and interesting until it stops being so. Then the film kind of comes crashing down to earth. It spends its first third investing in a particular genre, only to divert away from that genre into more "normal" territory, but inexplicably so. If you have seen the original film (released in 1994), then this genre switch might not be so disorienting, but for most audiences, this film will be approached as a self-contained story. And it does work without having seen the first film, but that obviously alone doesn't make a good film.

This film's main problem is believability. In today's world, there's just no way a 20-something could scam her way so easily into a "psych ward" and especially the one that houses her father's attempted killer. The fact that she's further left alone in a locked room with the killer is absurd. More illogical affordances and decisions by everyone make the story feel ridiculous and hard to get behind. The movie also suffers for not following through with the premise set up in its first third. Why such a fake out, especially if this is a sequel? If things were inversed (the film starts out with how this film ends, and then switches to how this film begins), then a fake-out might be warranted. Instead, we're left with a standard serial killer threat and not many surprises, even the "surprise" at the film's end not being that surprising at all.