So I was hype to get back into the Night for a watch-through and not disappointed. It did start a little slower than I'd remembered, but it's similar to Midnight Mass in that it takes its time introducing you to the characters so that the horror has more impact. It's good enough that I wanted to go good, bad, and ugly
Synopsis: The Night is a hotel haunting film that hits the mark on psychological horror and "show don't tell" storytelling. Babak moved to America from Iran 5 years before he was able to bring his wife over and start a family. The secrets and resentment that built up during that gap have gone unaddressed, until they wind up making a late-night decision to stay at the Hotel Normandy instead of driving home from a late-night with friends. Once they get into the hotel, they become trapped with the ghosts of their past as well as entities the Hotel has cooked up itself. The couple and their infant baby are stuck in perpetual night at the hotel unless they can confront their demons and find a way out.
The Good: The characters are fully fleshed out and realized, which amplifies the horror as the hotel starts to mess with them. The film introduces you to the characters and their traits in an extended opening at a party before dragging Babak, his wife, and daughter out of normalcy and into some straight-up nightmare-fuel. The hotel is disorienting and creepy, everyone we encounter at the hotel seems just a little off, and there's a bit of the uncanny to how dream-like everything is. The show-don't-tell portion hits the mark too. The scares give you clues as to what secrets the couple have kept from each other, but you can't be entirely sure until things escalate later on.
Speaking of escalation, The Night kills it here. They're patient about build-up and have zero reliance on jump scares. This is about facing your demons, so no need for cheap spooks. Nah, the ghosts take their time and I think that adds to the horror. The setting itself is great too, the hotel is creepy off the rip but it feels like it's expanding and becoming more of a maze as the film goes on. They score points for isolation and what few "people" do show up, tend to come across indifferent or even threatening. The creators weren't afraid to go really dark with where they take these characters and even though I think a lot of the plot was pretty discernible on my first watch, this second watch brought out some new ideas that'll only make a third watch even better.
The Bad: Listen, it's slow and deliberate about everything it does. The first fifteen minutes of this movie are just a parties with some friends. The next fifteen minutes start to show that things aren't as perfect as they seem, but are still just taking us to the location. That might be too long for some viewers, especially because a good chunk of this movie is subtitled. Patience is rewarded IMO, though. This also isn't a gory film with a big bodycount. The stakes are pretty clear from the offset, it's this family of three predominantly dealing with apparitions. So if you're looking for bodies and kills, this ain't it. The physical stuff isn't the concern, it's the mental part.
The Ugly: Off the rip, Babak seems like kind of a dikk. It's not as bad as the recent run of horror movies where you actively root against the protagonists because they all suck, but I was more actively invested in the wife and baby than the lead. But this is, after all, a redemption type of story...so it's not too shocking that the lead has major flaws to face-off with. That's what makes his inner-demons so rough in the first place. The only other major issue I had is more of a petpeeve, but this couple lets everyone who asks hold their baby even though a lot of those people are freakin' weird. I think the characters act in reasonable ways for most of this flick, but the hot potato baby passing around is dumb.
Final Verdict: This is still one of my favorite horrors in the last 10 years. When people look for disturbing, I generally think of off-the-wall gory stuff like Terrifier or slept-on The Eyes of My Mother. But this one hits psychological horror in a manner that very few other flicks manage. There are images and moments that will stick in your memory even though they rarely went outside the box. By keeping things contained to the two main characters and letting us pick up on hints instead of forcing exposition, we get a damned good rewatchable horror movie.
