Nightwatch: Demons Are Forever is now streaming on Shudder.
Nightwatch: Demons Are Forever is perplexing. It has a strong cast, an enthralling premise, and a talented director in Ole Bornedal. There’s even a decent amount of nostalgia at play, considering it’s a sequel to a 30-year-old cult classic. Basically, Demons Are Forever had everything it needed to be a great slasher movie and not the adequate-yet-redundant follow-up it turns out to be.
As a direct sequel to the original 1994 Nightwatch (not to be mistaken for the 1997 American remake) Demons Are Forever has a sense of history that’s initially captivating. A night watchman for a morgue escaping the clutches of a mad man only for his daughter to potentially run into them years later? It’s a distressing concept. It’s more than just returning faces and a familiar setting though: The lighting (which seems to be filtered through shades of gray), Bornedal’s deliberate style of shooting, and the stilted dialogue conjure a collective sadness that’s purposely unsettling. Everyone is a threat, nowhere is safe, and our guard is up long before witnessing any wrongdoing – a disturbing interrogation scene notwithstanding.
Bornedal establishes a sense of dread without stealing too much focus from his main storyline, which pays tremendous dividends here. When Demons Are Forever shifts from investigating a murder mystery to exploring the strained relationship between Martin Bork (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) and his daughter Emma (Fanny Leander Bornedal, daughter of the director), we never forget we’re still watching a horror movie. It’s been years since Martin and his girlfriend Kalinka were held captive by deranged serial killer Peter Wörmer (Ulf Pilgaard), yet he still suffers from what seems like a form of PTSD. He isn’t working, is on medication, and is somewhat fearful of the world around him – and Bornedal makes us feel that fear, whether we’ve seen Nightwatch or not. Emma, who’s unaware of any of this, is frustrated with how Martin pretends that everything is fine. Her frustration, which later turns to resentment, is also amplified by the weird vibe that’s established early on. And because she’s unfamiliar with this painful chapter in her father’s life, Emma winds up taking the very same job that set Martin on a collision course with his attacker – a brilliant metaphor for the cyclical nature of their shared predicament.
Demons Are Forever succeeds whenever it explores the lingering effects of trauma and how two people can walk away from the same tragedy with wildly different perceptions of what happened. It’s during these times that the acting, directing, and overall tone matches the intensity of the unnerving subject matter. Unfortunately, this isn’t sustained throughout. There’s a change toward the middle where the sequel starts to mimic Nightwatch in an uninspired way, which means that the potential scares, creepy encounters, and the eventual bloodshed all quickly become predictable. Taking a tamer approach to this material does Demons Are Forever no favors.
Take the Forensic Medicine Institute, Martin’s former and Emma’s current workplace. This fairly iconic setting is never used to its fullest. Some lingering shots down a barren hallway and a few nods to the old set aren’t enough to recapture the foreboding of Nightwatch. It makes sense the institute would have been renovated over the years, but its updated look strips away the dank griminess that made it so creepy in the first place. It’s now a well lit, mostly pristine and toothless building. The flickering lights, large imposing doors, and blackened windows are mostly gone. The sets create no tension to speak of – a visit to the morgue is only uncomfortable because it’s uncomfortable to visit a morgue, not because it’s actually depicted as a scary place to be in at night.
The same goes for the kills. Demons Are Forever is well paced and features racks up a larger body count than the original Nightwatch, but that doesn’t make it a more thrilling watch. There’s not enough time for the anxiety to build up. And the intimate perspective that made the violence in the first film hard to stomach is completely gone as well. Most of the deaths occur offscreen, following brief encounters that barely excite – those that should be shocking I could see coming from a mile away. The troubling edge of Nightwatch is nowhere to be found.
The lead performances, at least, hold up. Despite spending most of the 2010s as the dangerously charismatic Jaime Lannister on Game of Thrones, Coster-Waldau has no problem slipping back into the role of Martin. His awkward mannerisms and overall aloofness give credibility to his portrayal of a damaged individual in need of help. Leander Bornedal is also believable as Emma, particularly when playing opposite Waldau; she has an impressive ability to show Emma’s disdain without undercutting the notion that she loves her father. Pilgaard, too, is as creepy as ever as Peter. Though he isn’t on screen much, it’s impactful when he makes an appearance.
The rest of the cast, while solid, aren’t so lucky. Kim Bodnia returns as Martin’s friend Jens, but without Lotte Andersen as his wife, Lotte (who’s played instead by Vibeke Hastrup) – their reunion is too short-lived to be noteworthy, anyway. Casper Kjær Jensen also goes underused in his portrayal of the unhinged villain Bent, his efforts amounting to little more than plot advancement. The same can be said of Sonja Richter as nurse Gunver, who otherwise plays a convincing caregiver.
Demons Are Forever gets off to a good start, only to lapse into familiarity and predictability. It repeats the wrong parts of the previous Nightwatch, removing what worked in the past; even the twist fails to shock, and only leads to an anticlimactic end. The stakes are higher, and the violence more extreme, but its slasher-movie clichés waste the creepy atmosphere established in the early scenes. The result is a middling movie that won't be remembered as fondly as its predecessor.
