Nightwatch * (1997, Ewan McGregor, Nick Nolte, Patricia Arquette, Brad Dourif, Josh Brolin, Lonny Chapman, Lauren Graham, John C Reilly) – Classic Movie Review 3036

Writer-director Ole Bornedal’s 1997 thriller stars Ewan McGregor as the nightwatchman at a scary morgue in a town where somebody’s killing women and mutilating their bodies.

McGregor is law student Martin Bells, who takes the job as he thinks it will give him plenty of time to study. But his paranoia gets in the way of that – and so does getting mixed up with one of the murders and becoming a suspect. Nick Nolte plays Inspector Thomas Cray, the sinister cop on the case of the serial killer.

Both these performances are worth checking out in an otherwise failed horror-thriller, an attempt to transpose a Scandinavian chiller (Bornedal’s 1994 film Nattevagten with Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) to an American setting with a much changed, souped-up ending that just adds to the general air of farrago. Going through a career slump, an off-form Patricia Arquette gives another nothing performance as McGregor’s victimised girlfriend.

Occasionally slightly eerie and atmospheric, but mostly just pretty nasty and tasteless, Nightwatch is reminiscent of all the worst elements of a bad Stephen King adaptation – The Shining meets Pet Semetery meets Graveyard Shift.

Despite a few interesting ingredients, and a good cast (Brad Dourif, Josh Brolin, Lonny Chapman, Lauren Graham, John C Reilly), overall it ends up in the barely watchable category.

It is rated R for strong, morbid violence, strong language, sexuality, and some drug content.

© Derek Winnert 2015 Classic Movie Review 3036

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