Two of last year’s most notable films, Lynne Ramsay’s Die My Love and Mary Bronstein’s If I Had Legs I’d Kick You, explore the dark side of motherhood. Both of those works aren’t without their horror elements, but they’re above all infatuated with psychological realism. Think of Hanna Bergholm’s Nightborn as their naughtier kissing cousin, riffing on a fertile trend by leaning even more into out-and-out horror as it relates the tale of a Finnish woman, Saga (Seidi Haarla), who struggles to bring up a literal monster baby.
Saga and her British husband, Jon (Rupert Grint), have moved back into her dilapidated childhood home in the middle of a Finnish forest. They both can’t wait to have precisely three children, and Saga dreams of redesigning a room in the house, one now mysteriously inhabited by a small sapling growing from its center, into an idyllic nursery.
After the couple have sex in the woods that her grandmother always warned her about, Saga becomes pregnant and eventually has her first child, whose back is hairy, screams in the sunlight, and sucks blood from its mother’s breast. While Jon, patient at first, slowly comes to blame Saga for the child’s maladaptation, he’s not exactly the one dealing with the little blood-sucker, leaving Saga feeling isolated from both her husband and newborn. But the biggest challenge for Jon arrives when Saga begins actually caring for their child in the way it needs.
What you see is what you get in Nightborn, which isn’t a film of hidden or multi-layered metaphors. As the story traces the efforts of a mother who tries, against all odds, to love a monster, we’re drawn into a vortex of screaming and bloodshed. Haarla makes for a particularly guttural scream queen, with several of Saga’s wails throughout coming from a place of pent-up frustration, while others are used to more forcefully communicate with her kin. Plenty almost come out of nowhere, guided by a self-reflective camp spirit. Blood spurts with great comedic timing, and the line between body horror and gross-out humor is frequently crossed.
This is a film that’s happy to telegraph every bit of its narrative, beginning with John seeing humanoid figures melded into tree stumps in the woods. Later on, his very British, very Christian parents (John Thomson and Rebecca Lacey) bring up legends around trolls, as if all the myriad signs pointing to the child’s true nature—from that hairy back to its appetite for raw meat—weren’t enough. Still, even if the film has few surprises in store for us, there’s something pleasingly unpretentious about how it leaves little room for subtext throughout.
Nightborn colors within the lines of what you expect from a folk horror story about a troll-baby. As for what raising such a child does to a mother, the film is content to say that it sucks, making hay with often tense sequences that double as punchlines. For succeeding in turning humble goals into gorily oversized returns, it puts more lauded prestige horror films to shame.
Since 2001, we've brought you uncompromising, candid takes on the world of film, music, television, video games, theater, and more. Independently owned and operated publications like Slant have been hit hard in recent years, but we’re committed to keeping our content free and accessible—meaning no paywalls or fees.
If you like what we do, please consider subscribing to our Patreon or making a donation.
