Nightborn (London Film Festival 2026) (II)

I don’t know quite what I was expecting from Nightborn, but it certainly wasn’t the film it ended up being and it was all the better for it. The promotional material and general aesthetic called to mind modern folk horrors like Daniel Kokotajlo’s Starve Acre, but Nightborn is considerably more in your face in its presentation, and even less well-behaved in its content. Hanna Bergholm’s new film sees a couple move into a house in the Finnish forest with dreams of starting a family. After having sex among the trees, the film cuts to their child being born, and this is where the problems start because not only is something clearly wrong with the newborn, but the mother struggles to adapt to motherhood becoming obsessed with her peculiar offspring. 

Maternal themes are well-worn in horror, and while Nightborn is far from perfect, the film’s commitment to gross and feral imagery leads to some genuinely great sequences. Within five minutes, Rupert Grint is covered in blood after a traumatic childbirth shown in unexpectedly graphic detail, and it’s a scene that solidly establishes the tone of the rest of the film: horror cliches laced with dark comedy and pushed to the extreme. Seidi Haarla and Rupert Grint are really strong as the central couple. This is probably Grint’s best performance in a film since Harry Potter, and it’s good to see him with a script that can use him effectively and push him as a performer, but credit here has to go to Haarla, who has to convey so much in her performance mentally and physically. It’s her film to own, and she owns it. 

Nightborn was being shown in one of the smaller screens I was in over the weekend (not saying a lot, considering I was in the Royal Festival Hall for half of it and that holds nearly 3,000), but the packed audience seemed really into it. That may be why some of the film’s more blunt moments packed more of a punch, enhanced by a crowd that it was clearly made for. 

FOR MORE ON NIGHTBORN AND THE LONDON FILM FESTIVAL, CLICK ON THE ARTICLE AT THE BOTTOM OF THE REVIEW

The stereotypical moments of raising a baby, such as breastfeeding and getting them to eat for the first time, are made to feel that much more infuriating and unnerving when presented in this way, but it’s the more uncanny distortions of reality where Nightborn is at its strongest. Barely seeing the infant’s face and obscuring him through shadows and odd angles perfectly places us in the perspective of the traumatised mother, and also makes an atmosphere even more surreal as we’re not quite sure what’s real and what’s not.

With that said, once the film’s set of tricks have been established, there isn’t much more it has to offer. Nightborn has a bit of a problem with mixed metaphors: there’s a lot of talk of the forest as a part of Finnish folklore and a foundation in the mother’s family, and there’s also animalistic imagery going on as mother and son both develop an aversion to sunlight and an obsession with meat. I get the natural link on paper, but in practice Nightborn seems torn over which one it’s going to commit to at any time. Also, the same moments of unusual behaviour from the mother and Rupert Grint looking terrified can get a bit repetitive, and that’s a bit of a problem when the film is only 90 minutes long.

Still, Haarla and Grint manage to add variety to these scenes by playing them in different ways, and their nuanced performances kept me engaged in not just the horror, but these characters in general. Grunt’s character is understandably sidelined during the middle, as the focus turns to Haarla and her character’s obsessive descent, but his return to the narrative serves to highlight just how intense Nightborn has gotten by the time we get to the third act, which I found really satisfying. 

Nightborn feels like a hodgepodge of ideas, some of which are more smartly-executed than others, but I liked all of them well enough to think that it’s worth a recommendation. If nothing else, it’s willing to be far more in-your-face and disgusting than I ever thought it’d be, and you have to love a film that abandons all forms of taste.

ALEX’S ARCHIVE – NIGHTBORN

ROB PREVIOUSLY REVIEWED NIGHTBORN FOR ITS WORLD PREMIERE AT FANTASIA, READ MORE HERE