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The Nightwatch Collection - Limited Edition
[Blu-ray]
Blu-ray A - America - Arrow Films Review written by and copyright: Eric Cotenas (12th July 2025). |
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The Film
 "Years before Nordic Noir took the TV world by storm with such hits as The Killing and The Bridge, writer-director Ole Bornedal had already put the genre on the map with Nightwatch, an unforgettably nail-biting thriller and the breakout film of both Nikolaj Coster-Waldau (Game of Thrones) and Kim Bodnia (Pusher)." Nightwatch: Facing imminent graduation from law school, twenty-four year old Martin (Domino's Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) and his buddy Jens (Pusher's Kim Bodnia) are starting to get cold feet about going into the real world despite being in relatively committed relationships with, respectively, acting student Kalinka (Fortitude's Sofie Gråbøl) and vicar Lotte (The Spider's Lotte Andersen), one more so than the other. In the face of regular employment and inevitable matrimony, Jens and Martin decide to "flip out" for the next two weeks where no dare is off limits. Martin has taken a job as the new nightwatchman at the forensic department where he hopes to get some studying done during the long nights in between his rounds. His predecessor (Deep Water's Gyrd Løfquist) creeps him out with various details about his job – including regular visits to the morgue in which he must walk past rows of bodies to get to the key for his watchclock and an alarm that can alert him just in case one someone declared dead actually wakes up on the slab – as well as his own predecessor whose nightly encounters with a "harem" of corpses was hushed up to avoid a scandal. The solitude and silence starts to get to Martin, particularly when the latest victim of a serial killer of young women arrives in the morgue and investigating detective Peter Wörmer (The Substitute's Ulf Pilgaard) confides a detail withheld from the press linking all of the killings: the killer scalps his victims. Jens confides to Martin his dalliances with underage prostitute Joyce (Men & Chicken's Rikke Louise Andersson who later married Bodnia) using Martin's name and dares Martin to meet her using Jens' name, resulting in a very public hand job in a restaurant. Dangling more cash in front of Joyce, Jens starts needling her for information about her weirdest customers, and Martin discovers that not only does Joyce have a regular customer who pays her to pretend to be dead but that her roommate was the scalping killer's most recent victim. When the alarm rings from the morgue and only Martin claims the victim's body has moved, t thinks Martin is cracking up. Martin's worlds soon converge when Joyce approaches Kalinka believing Jens to be Martin and is murdered shortly after. The duty doctor (After the Wedding's Niels Anders Thorn) believes that Martin is another another necrophiliac when the victim's body turns up in different places around the department, his girlfriend and Wörmer's partner (When Animals Dream's Stig Hoffmeyer) think he may be a murderer, and the only person he may be able to trust is Wörmer who suspects that he is being framed but will Martin be able to discover the real culprit before he is silenced? Although Denmark along with most of Scandinavia have long literary traditions of thrillers and even several cinematic examples throughout the history of cinema in the twentieth century, it has only been since the turn-of-the-century become synonymous with the television and film genre of "Nordic Noir" with series like the Danish/Swedish The Bridge which starred Bodnia in the first two seasons as one of the two lead detectives and The Killing starring Gråbøl (both of which inspired remakes in different territories including the United States for The Killing and The Bridge in both the U.S. and the British/French The Tunnel). Ole Bornedal's Nightwatch could have been the film that brought "Nordic Noir" to the west had it not been acquired by Miramax and withheld from wide distribution – even on video – and instead commissioned a remake from Bornedal and cinematographer Dan Laustsen (Crimson Peak) for Dimension Films starring Ewan McGregor, Josh Brolin, Patricia Arquette, Lauren Graham, and Nick Nolte – along with Brad Dourif as the duty doctor and an uncredited John C. Reilly as Nolte's partner– with one of the usual Miramax production/post-production hell histories of recuts and reshoots (with rewrites during production and a year later by Steven Soderbergh) that failed to make much of a splash despite being more widely released theatrically and on home video. On the other hand, one can see why Miramax snapped up the original given the sometimes absurd and contrived plot twists of the latter half of the film after the moody beginning in which Martin is revealed to still be possessed of childhood fears while the "no limits" dares show a childish disregard for possible real repercussions. The identity of the killer is pretty obvious from the start but performances keep things engaging and the seemingly needless coda is actually capped by a humorous callback to one of the film's key plot points. Just as Bornedal moves back and forth between black humor and horror, Laustsen's photography also moves back and forth between naturalism and shadowy noir – not just in the morgue scenes but also in some of the dramatic scenes between Coster-Waldau and Gråbøl who mediate their intimacy describing their sentiments as being "like a bad movie" – while the remake is more one note in its post-Scream atmosphere including an opening teaser kill before yet another Kyle Cooper/Imaginary Forces title sequence that became popular after Se7en but had already worn out their welcome by 1997, and the casting of Alix Koromzay (DreamWorks' The Haunting) who appeared in a string of Dimension titles during this period as Joyce. Coster-Waldau has had a prolific international career and is probably most recognizable of the cast in the west with his most recent notable role in the long-running Game of Thrones while Bodnia appeared in the first three seasons of Netflix's The Witcher, and arthouse fans might notice an early brief role from Ulrich Thomsen a few years before his lead in the hit "Dogme 95" film The Celebration (Festen). Bornedal and Laustsen continued working with Miramax, respectively producing and photographing Guillermo del Toro's Mimic – yet another production savaged by Miramax but fortunately restored to its director's cut in later years – and, indeed, their style had an influence on the look and sound some of the other Miramax genre titles from this period. While Laustsen has continued working in Hollywood, Bornedal has worked in Danish film and television, most recently returning to Nightwatch with a 2023 sequel.  Nightwatch: Demons are Forever: Medical student Emma (Deliver Us from Evil's Fanny Leander Bornedal) finally takes it upon herself to go through her mother's belongings a year after her suicide, during which her father Martin (Coster-Waldau) has fallen into a depression, deadening his emotional pain with sedatives. When she discovers newspaper clippings about her parents' near deaths at the hands of a serial killer before her birth, Emma realizes that these events are what haunted her mother whose suppressed fears came out whenever she drank. With her father unwilling to talk about anything involving her mother and also needing money since her father's savings are dwindling and he is not on benefits, Emma decides to follow in her father's footsteps and take a job on the nightwatch at the forensic department. She attempts to learn more from her predecessor (Open Hearts' Tina Gylling Mortensen) and is shocked to learn that Martin's best friend Jens (Bodnia) did not manage to kill the murderer who has been institutionalized for the last thirty years. Hoping for closure for both her father and herself, Emma schemes with boyfriend Frederick (A War's Alex Høgh Andersen) to get into the institution under the guise of research to confront the man who has haunted her family. She is caught by his psychiatrist Gunver (The Homesman's Sonja Richter) who is concerned for her patient's well-being being confronted with his crimes after so long but offers her therapeutic services to Emma's father as part of her patient's ongoing treatment. When Emma confesses what she has done to her father, however, he is only afraid that now the killer knows that she exists. When Jens' ex-wife Lotte (Babette's Feast's Vibeke Hastrup) is murdered and scalped by Bent (The Shadow in My Eye's Casper Kjær Jensen), a patient who was formerly though harmless on his medication who looked at the killer as a sort of father figure, detective Kramer (The Idiots' Paprika Steen) thinks it is an open-and-shut case but Gunver holds Emma responsible. When Jens turns up for the funeral, however, Martin wonders if Lotte's murder is just the first of a new cycle. Coming nearly thirty years after the original film and its remake, Nightwatch: Demons are Forever is a rather average thriller where its twists and turns feel more lazy than entertainingly absurd. In keeping with the "Nordic Noir" tradition the original film helped spawn, the tone is dreary and the story steeped in the traumatic pasts of its characters; however, in this case, it does suggest that Emma's recklessness sets things in motion rather than the cliché of the incarcerated killer biding his time – we do not even know if the killer "infected" his other unknown accomplice or the accomplice's own resentment has nurtured the killer's obsession – "punching a hole" in the psyches of both the killer and her father in her own eagerness to rob the killer of the psychological power he has over her father, her late mother, and herself and the obviousness (in terms of the genre) that there are going to be several incidental victims as pawns – including potentially her boyfriend and her underdeveloped quirky classmates Maria (Sauna's Nina Terese Rask) and Sofus (Legacy's Sonny Lindberg) – before the killer comes after her and her father; that said, Bornedal does convey in the climax and the final shots that realization and the possibility that she will may be covering up her own trauma for the sake of her father and her friend who both may actually be more successfully working through both also having to commit murders to survive. There is some brief, bright energy late in the film when Bodnia turns up and Coster-Waldau's grieving now-secondary protagonist snaps out of it in a moving scene where the two drunks run around a football pitch, but much of the film feels like a "trip down memory lane" relying on one's familiarity with the original film rather than building up its own atmosphere (Emma's nightwatch experiences seem rushed and augmented with haunted house sound design rather than tapping into any of her childhood fears) while the stalk-and-slash finale wastes another of the film's returning cast members, has a quite obvious red herring that Emma will run from into the arms of the killer, and a killer who is not a patch on the original film's maniac. The film feels less like an "exorcism" of the trauma unacknowledged in the coda of the original film than a nostalgia cash-grab. 
Video
Picked up in the United States by Miramax but withheld from release in favor of their remake, Nightwatch could only be found in English-friendly form as a British VHS release from Tartan after a theatrical release by Tartan/Metrodome theatrical arm Metro-Tartan. The film finally got a U.S. release on DVD in 2001 through Anchor Bay who had licensed a number of titles from Miramax's back catalogue that included a new English-language commentary by Bornedal that was not included on the U.K. DVD by Metrodome off-shoot In2Film. The film made its Blu-ray debut in 2013 in Denmark as a barebones, MPEG-2 edition with lossy audio followed by a 2014 German Blu-ray with Bordenal's English commentary (the feature itself was not English-friendly). Arrow Video's 1080p24 MPEG-4 AVC 1.85:1 widescreen Blu-ray – also available in the U.K. – presumably comes from the same master since the booklet's "About the Presentation" section offers no specifics. The contrasting blues and yellow-oranges of the lighting scheme look bolder without the slight magenta push evident in the more naturalistic scenes and resolution is improved enough that one can make out an out of focus Easter Egg in the art direction in the form of a a poster for a theatrical play starring Bodnia during the pub scene. While we have not seen a remaster of the remake, comparable imagery in both films reveals that the original film always looked a bit warmer than the more desaturated remake (also shot by Laustsen).  Nightwatch: Demons are Forever was released to Blu-ray first in Denmark by Nordisk Film and then in Germany as limited edition 4K/Blu-ray mediabook and Blu-ray standard edition, neither of which were English-friendly. Arrow Video offers no transfer specifics but we can presume that it is the same master provided by Shudder who picked up the film's rights in the U.K. and U.S. The 1080p24 MPEG-4 AVC 2.39:1 widescreen image is as good as one expects of a recent production, especially given a heavy use of shallow focus shots – some possibly further de-focused digitally – and a more "digital" grade where the yellows and blues stand out more against the more neutral skin tones and wardrobe. The cinematography of Lasse Frank Johannessen (Tom of Finland) is in scope but seems flatter overall next to the original film, but that also seems more to do with the collapsing of our aesthetic distinctions between "cinematic" features and television where most of the recent Nordic Noir small screen works look no different apart from the aspect ratio (it is slick but lacks the distinctiveness of Laustsen's work on the earlier film). 
Audio
The end credits of Nightwatch only sport a Dolby logo so we are uncertain whether it was a Dolby Stereo or Dolby Digital release theatrically – or a Dolby Stereo Digital release where the matrixed stereo track was also included on the digital track – but the fact that Arrow's default audio option is the LPCM 2.0 track suggests the former while the Dolby Digital 5.1 tracks on the DVDs and the DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 option here were created for home video. Dialogue is a mix of Danish and Swedish as naturally occurs in the Copenhagen region and it is the scoring of Joachim Holbek (Breaking the Waves) and the sound design of the forensic department – fluttering moths in the ceiling lamp, air vents, blaring alarms – that get the most spread in the stereo surround and 5.1 mixes (although the latter is less "discrete" than that of the 5.1 track on the remake where the Dolby Digital mix was the original track).  Nightwatch: Demons are Forever was released to Danish Blu-ray with a 7.1 track and German Blu-ray and 4K with an Atmos track (which may or may not be an upmix). Although Shudder has made the film available both in its original Danish and a (reportedly awful) English dub, Arrow's Blu-ray edition includes a Danish DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 mix that certainly gets the job done from its teaser with a mental patient bashing their head against a CGI two-way mirror, washes of music and background atmosphere, moody rain, more active sound design in the institutional settings – along with some moans and screams that are entirely in the head of a spooked character investigating the forbidden areas of the forensic department – along with some jumps in the otherwise unememorable scoring of Ceiri Torjussen (Dracula III: Legacy) is unmemorable and not a patch on the work of Holbeck in the original film even when the soundtrack reprises the song. Optional English subtitles are free of errors. 
Extras
Nightwatch's extras start off with the audio commentary by writer/director Ole Bornedal recorded in 2001 for the Anchor Bay DVD in which he describes the film as the most successful Danish thriller in some time and its international reception including Miramax picking up the film for the U.S. There is a lot of play-by-play, commenting on the onscreen action and what it suggests of the characters and the tone; however, he does discuss his method of foreshadowing and making a premise believably simply through stating it clearly – for instance, the alarm for people who wake up on the slab – inadvertently calling attention to the way the film's exposition is given to the supporting actors like the older guard and Wormer's partner Rolf. He is frank about things he felt did not work in the film from some sets to the buildup and payoff of some scenes, suggesting that he actually did approach the remake with the interest of improving things rather than just making it palatable to American audiences. Presumably because he still had a working relationship with Miramax at the time, he does not discuss the reshoots and post-production issues on the remake but he does reveal note that Ewan MacGregor disagreed with him about some of the direction as he did not want to simply copy Coster-Waldau's performance. "Not Afraid of the Darkness" (16:56) is a brand new interview with director of photography Laustsen who recalls his experience on features in Denmark earlier on and his reluctance to work with Bornedal initially until he read the script and met the director who had clear ideas about how he wanted the film to look. He also recalls working with a small crew – comparing it to his Hollywood work by name-dropping del Toro's upcoming Frankenstein film – the use of Steadicam, and the film's lighting. "Death in Denmark" (14:09) is a new appreciation of both films by film critic and Nordic Noir specialist Barry Forshaw who also looks at the first film's reception in the U.K. and the Nordic Noir craze in the U.K. stemming from the two series with Bodnia and Gråbøl – who had already been in some projects of note that were well-received by U.K. viewers – as well as how those series contributed to U.K. television audiences to accept watching shows with subtitles. Of the first film, he discusses its Hitchcockian aspects and questions whether it should be considered a crime film or a horror film (also noting the U.K. promotional artwork that compared the film to Saw). He is less charitable about the remake than he is of the sequel, noting how what was illogical in the original film felt even more so in the remake. Of the remake, he does note that the characters are more sympathetic than those of the original and that Bornedal is obviously more invested in the film's older characters but also suggests that the "nepo" casting of Bornedal's daughter works due to her performance (also referencing along with others throughout the extras Bornedal looking for the imapct of his scenes in the eyes of his actors and how the remake does not need a reverse angle in the climax when Emma fires at the killer). The making-of documentary (28:13) is interesting in that it is not the typical Hollywood actor/director anecdote-focused puff piece but a look at the production process from the perspective of the crew including Bornedal, Laustsen, the producer, lighting director, sound designers, and others with the actors only seen being directed or in clips. The disc closes with a Danish theatrical trailer (1:32), a German theatrical trailer (1:32), and an English theatrical trailer (1:33). Of the latter, the film was never dubbed into English and this is not a Miramax promo but a version of the Danish trailer with an English title card and subtitled dialogue.  Nightwatch: Demons are Forever is accompanied by two video essays. In "How the Nightwatch Films Explore the Horrors of Adulthood" (17:45), film critic Heather Wixson describes the film's conflict as "transitional anxieties" about the "intricacies of adulthood" in the way the two male leads challenge each other and the dynamics of their relationship with Martin oddly looking up to Jens as wiser when the film depicts him as a "scared, entitled jerk" as well as how the seemingly light coda plays in retrospect. Of the sequel, Wixson discusses the film's contrasts, noting the state of the original characters at the end of the first film and the start of the sequel and how the repetitions of elements from the original result from Emma driving the narrative with her attempt to confront the demons of her parents' past (and her own given her concern about what she might have in her DNA from her mother). "Life (and Death) on Mars: Public and Private Life in the Nightwatch Universe" (22:23) is a video essay by film critic Alexandra Heller-Nicholas looking at the collapse of public and private spaces as conveyed both in the plot and in the visual style of both films – noting the intrusion of the morgue's color scheme into Martin's and Kalinka's apartment, the new paint job in the sequel's hospital areas and the "rot" in the forbidden areas signified by the use of that sickly yellow from the original film, and how Emma and Martin actually bring warmth in the lighting to the institutional setting of the climax – as well as how both aspects play to the expectations of the audience as "horror voyeurs." The Danish theatrical trailer (2:07) is also included (neither the Danish nor German editions have anything in the way of making-of, interviews, or commentaries). 
Packaging
The first pressing comes in a slipcover with a reversible sleeve and a double-sided foldout poster featuring newly commissioned artwork for both films by Peter Strain, and an illustrated collector's booklet featuring new writing on the films by Eva Novrup Redvall discussing the impact of the first film with Danish audiences as the (debatable) "first Danish horror film in 50 years" in the context of a national cinema "in need of rejuvenation" when its most memorable exports were Babette's Feast and Pelle the Conqueror from a decade before and the arthouse "Dogme 95" movement concurrent with Bornedal's film, Bornedal as an industry outsider who was not accepted into film school and moved up through radio and television, its cast of future stars, its ties to the serial killer genre recently reinvigorated with Silence of the Lambs and anticipating the new slasher boom that came with Scream, its reception, the remake, and the sequel. 
Overall
Arrow's The Nightwatch Collection brings to wider release one of the true progenitors of Nordic Noir along with a sequel too bogged down by expectations of the genre. 
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