Nightwatch (1997 film)

Law student Martin Bells is hired as a night watchman at a hospital morgue. A string of gruesome prostitute murders committed by a necrophiliac serial killer quickly point to him as the lead suspect in the investigation carried out by Inspector Thomas Cray. At the same time, Martin slowly discovers clues that point to the real perpetrator.

• Ewan McGregor as Martin Bells
• Patricia Arquette as Katherine
• Josh Brolin as James Gallman
• Lauren Graham as Marie
• Nick Nolte as Inspector Thomas Cray
• Brad Dourif as Duty Doctor
• Alix Koromzay as Joyce
• Anais Evans as Leanne
• Lonny Chapman as Old Watchman
• Larry Cedar as Waiter (uncredited)
• Sandra Hess as Student (uncredited)
• John C. Reilly as Deputy Inspector Bill Davis (uncredited)

After the original Nattevagten found critical acclaim in 1994, director Ole Bornedal was hired by Dimension Films (who had recently purchased the distribution rights for Nattevagten) to come to the United States and remake the film.[5][6] The remake was intended to be the first of three films Bornedal would direct for Miramax, the parent company of Dimension.[7]

Principal photography for the remake took place in Culver City, California and UCLA. Nightwatch took a year to complete, due to a series of test screenings and reshoots Miramax ordered.[8][9][7] Changes made by Miramax to the finished cut included reducing the role of James's girlfriend Marie,[9] and adding a "more satisfying final scene".[9] Bornedal went on to state that "the actual shooting of Nightwatch was terrific, everything was totally wonderful, and I was free to do as I pleased, but everything suddenly became extremely complicated during the post-production phase".[6]

The co-writer of the film's script, Steven Soderbergh, is described as having "sanitized" the original 1994 script.[8] For example, in the Danish version, there is a scene at a restaurant where the character Jens orders a prostitute to give Martin a blowjob. In the remake, Jens (now known as James) instead orders the prostitute to give Martin a handjob.[8][3] Also added by Soderbergh were American pop culture references, including a scene where Martin mutters: "It's just like one of those movies on the USA Network, the hero sees something weird and no one will believe him".[8] Soderbergh himself noted his frustrations at being forced to provide new script pages for reshoots that were going to be detrimental to the quality of the film.[8]

An opening credit sequence was designed by Kyle Cooper, who had also worked on the opening credits for other films, such as Seven and Mimic. It contained a photo montage of women with their eyes scratched out; as the killer's trademark in the film was to remove the eyes of his victims.[10] Cooper then shot these images submerged in water, to give them an added layer of distance and make them ripple spectrally on the screen.[10]

Nightwatch's background score was handled by Danish composer Joachim Holbek, who, like many of the crew, was also involved in the original version.[5] When Nightwatch was in the process of being re-edited, Scream composer Marco Beltrami was brought in to rescore several scenes. He also composed the score for a newly shot scene at the beginning of the film, involving the killer and a prostitute.[11] While Martin is working at the morgue, there are sequences where he listens to licensed songs from alternative rock/electronic artists The Chemical Brothers, R.E.M. and Transister.[12] The closing credits featured the song "Pain" by Super 8, an alternative rock band briefly signed to Hollywood Records in the mid-90s. Originally, songs by the band Garbage also appeared throughout, but they were later removed in post-production. To coincide with the film's debut, an accompanying soundtrack album was going to be released by Hollywood Records.[13] However, plans for the soundtrack album were ultimately abandoned.

In the United States, the theatrical release of Nightwatch had several delays due to the extended production. It was scheduled to come out at various different points,[14][15][16][17] including spring/summer 1997 and October 1997 (as suggested by the film's 1997 copyright year),[17] before eventually receiving a theatrical run in April 1998. While these delays were occurring, the film received its worldwide premiere at the 1997 Málaga International Week of Fantastic Cinema in Spain, with Bornedal winning the Best Director prize.[18] It was also shown at the 1997 American Film Market in Santa Monica, California,[19]

Two separate workprint versions exist, both made prior to Miramax's heavy editing. A significantly longer 139 minute version which has surfaced on the internet omits the opening scene with the prostitute, and the ending scene of the final cut. Several songs that were removed from the final cut, such as R.E.M.'s "Man on the Moon" and Garbage's "Only Happy When It Rains" and "Supervixen", also appear in this workprint.

Nightwatch received mostly negative reviews from critics. On Rotten Tomatoes it has a 28% rating based on 29 reviews from critics. Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "C−" on an A+ to F scale.[20]

In June 1997, Playboy film critic Bruce Williamson gave Nightwatch three out of four stars, calling it an "eerie shocker", and remarking that "thrill seekers will be scared stiff before the killer even starts desecrating corpses in a diabolical spree."[21] In an April 1998 review, Stephen Holden of The New York Times criticized Nightwatch for "spending so much time churning up eerie atmospheric effects that it doesn't have time to develop its preposterous story in which Martin finds himself accused of the murders". Holden also called the film's climax "clumsily prolonged".[22] On an episode of Siskel & Ebert, it received two thumbs down from Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert. Siskel commented that, "Nightwatch really offers the morgue as the only reason to watch. Some of the mayhem, like a blood spattered corpse of a teenage girl, is just disgusting. But no character is fully developed; just repetitive cheap thrills in a film that ultimately bored me."[23] Roger Ebert's review for the Chicago Sun-Times states that "this film depends so heavily on horror effects, blind alleys, false leads and red herrings that eventually watching it stops being an experience and becomes an exercise".[24] In a review for Variety, Leonard Klady claimed: "It’s not ideas that are lacking, but the connective tissue to give them life. The absence of even a vague unifying spirit reduces Nightwatch almost to the level of an intellectual "snuff" film".[25] Klady stated that he believed the film's cast had been underutilized, going on to write that "Patricia Arquette is squandered in the girlfriend role, and Brolin has more energy than focus in a badly conceived part". In spite of this, he praised Alix Koromzay's minor role as "a vulnerable and tragic teenage hooker".[25] Marc Savlov from The Austin Chronicle commented that "Arquette and Brolin seem as though they're off in their own private universe".[26]

Los Angeles Times writer Jack Matthews compared Nightwatch to the 1995 thriller Seven, mentioning that "like Seven, it mixes the styles of suspense, horror and film noir, using murky lighting, odd angles and deliberately paced camera movements to create an atmosphere of constant dread".[27] But he went on to write that "at least [Seven's] villain was on a mission--to punish violators of the Seven Deadly Sins--that would be personally threatening to most members of the audience. The psycho in Nightwatch is a necrophiliac, the scourge of the county morgue, with the peculiar habit of killing and mutilating prostitutes before having sex with them".[27]

A more positive review at the time came from Paul Clinton of CNN. He said that "Nightwatch is a fairly good effort" and that "the cinematography by Dan Laustsen and the lighting are excellent and add immensely to the overall tension of the piece".[28] However, he too criticized the climax of the film, referring to it as "cartoonish".[28] Like Clinton, Malcolm Johnson of the Hartford Courant commented on the lighting of the film in his review, writing: "True to his Scandinavian background, Bornedal has shot Nightwatch largely in semi-darkness, beginning with a violent murder in a prostitute's bedroom".[29]

• Nightwatch at IMDb
• Nightwatch at AllMovie
• Nightwatch at Rotten Tomatoes
• Nightwatch at Box Office Mojo