Nightborn Review: Rupert Grint's Monster Baby Folk Horror Nightmare

Nightborn review time. Hanna Bergholm's Finnish folk horror lands on Shudder July 31, and we caught it at Fantasia first (the North American premiere, no less). This is her follow-up to Hatching, and it takes the motherhood horror thing somewhere darker and a lot more visceral. The Setup: Hanna Bergholm's Folk Horror Follow-Up - Nightborn is Hanna Bergholm's second feature after Hatching (2022), and it pushes deeper into body horror and Finnish folklore. - Saga (Seidi Haarla) and her British husband Jon (Rupert Grint) move into her crumbling childhood house deep in the forest and start a family. - World premiere at the Berlin Film Festival in February; North American premiere at Fantasia Film Festival on July 22 as part of the festival's 30th anniversary. Motherhood Horror as Allegory - The whole film reads as an allegory for postpartum and first-time motherhood, the fear, the isolation, and nobody believing you. - Saga names the baby Kuura (frost) and refuses to call him anything but 'it' while everyone insists she is the one who needs help. - It lands somewhere between Rosemary's Baby and We Need to Talk About Kevin, run through Finnish folk horror.  Use of Space, Set Design, and the Score - The house does storytelling work: the broken floor, the renos, the tree growing up through the middle as Saga's bond with the child shifts. - The gothic-in-the-woods nursery is a standout, dark greens and muted grays with a cloud light and hot air balloon over the bassinet. - The score is by Eicca Toppinen, Finnish cellist and founder of Apocalyptica, and it carries the tone scene to scene. Body Horror, Gore, and the Growling Baby - There is a real amount of gore here, plus visceral childbirth and body-transformation makeup that earns its warnings. - The CG baby munching meat and growling tips into accidental comedy, which becomes part of the experience. - Content note for parents especially: some of the motherhood and childbirth material hits hard. The Verdict - Seidi Haarla carries the whole film and makes the impossible stuff believable; her performance is the anchor. - Arthur landed closer to a seven; Meaghan sat around a six, with the tonal 'too on-the-nose' quality as her main sticking point. - If you like folk horror and films about the harder edges of motherhood, this one is worth your time. Nightborn streams on Shudder from July 31. Follow us & Subscribe:SpotifyApple PodcastTikTokInstagramThreadsGrave Tone Horror Podcast Website Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.