31 Days of Halloween: Nightwatch

1994, Ole Bornedal (Nightwatch) -- Amazon

No, not the Russian fantasy-horror movie by Timur Bekmambetov; that came later, and has a space between 'night' and 'watch'. And no, not the movie with Ewan McGregor, that came not long after, but was also by the same director, and was the English language remake. This is the original Danish movie with Nikolaj Coster-Waldau long before he slept with his sister. OK ok, before his character slept with her. But OMG the baby-face! The frizzy hair!

Martin ((Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Game of Thrones) is a law student who takes a job as a night watchman in a local morgue in Copenhagen, hoping for more quiet time to focus on his studying. At the same time young women are being killed all over the city, and on one of his first few nights, a body is brought in by a cop, revealing the psychopath is sexually assaulting the dead women and scalping them.

The morgue is presented in the typical fuck-its-scary manner, but Martin is required to do his rounds. Modern day security guards have smart phones and QR codes they must snap as they do the rounds, but this one had Martin grab a key at certain points along the way and use them to move a timing device forward. The last key is in the cooler where the poorly draped bodies are, and where he is told about a rope that connects to an alarm. Should someone not actually be dead, they... would know to pull the rope? Anyway, no one wants the rope to actually be pulled.

Much of the movie is focused on building up the characters: Martin, his best friend Jens, his girlfriend Kalinka and Jens' girlfriend Lotte, as well as a few supporting characters like the cop investigating the murders who befriends Martin, claiming he had the same job when he was Martin's age. If you need an example of a movie that lives in its time (and possibly place? I don't know, not all that familiar with 90s Copenhagen) and how even "progressive Europe" was riddled with problematic sexism and misogyny, this could be a case-book. Jens is a horrible human being, and I assume part of his depiction as a prostitute humiliating drunken asshole is to have us assume he is the killer, but you might say Martin is worse for allowing Jens to do everything he does. I am not sure how we are supposed to see the main character as likeable but I guess that was the time? Boys will be boys?

Eventually the story collides directly with the murders as a prostitute Jens messes with becomes a victim and everything points its finger at Martin. Martin catches on that this is happening and does his own investigation, which leads him to the actual murderer but not in time. In the final act, Martin and Kalinka and Jens, finally showing some redeemable features, defeat the bad guy, and sum up a pretty decent murder mystery. 

But not a horror movie. While I remember the McGregor one being more... horror adjacent, this one sidesteps any such thing but for one scene where a tired Martin hallucinates a corpse getting up and walking down a hall. But all in all, an enjoyable flick, if you are able to stomach the problematic bits.

Of note, one of the reasons we chose to watch this old one is because the sequel, also with Coster-Waldau has just appeared on Amazon as well.