The Night - Blu-ray Review

[Michael Scott]

The Night



Movie:
Video:
Audio:
Extras: :
Final Score:


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Movie
I have a weakness for IFC films that Scream Factory puts out. They’re usually not GREAT films, but they cater more towards an indie audience, with a lot of rather well done horror movies (considering that these usually ARE indie productions, not grading it against big blockbusters) that surprise me. Especially the foreign ones. Usually I can watch one of the films and rather enjoy myself, and put out of my mind the weak acting, or at least recognizing the low production values. The Night is a film that totally caught me by surprise though. I noticed that it had a rather mediocre critical response to the film, but various film rating sites have a MUCH higher audience score, which made me slow down and take a more critical eye at the film.

The Night confused me at first. It seems to be a standard rate horror movie with some alliteration to marriage thrown in, but a lot of scenes didn’t seem to make sense. The quote about universes at the beginning, the random pictures in the hotel that we’re supposed to seemingly make sense of. And of course the random images that our characters witness along with an ambiguous ending that left me scratching my head. Just what was I missing? This was getting GREAT audience scores, but this left me very confused. That is, until I started looking closer at the picture and talking with several other people who had seen the film. Then it started coming together into a complete (or MORE complete) picture, and oh boy.

The film starts innocently enough with a quote that will become the foundation of the entire rest of the film. The quote states “A multiverse and only one universe, and one true universe..!?”. Fast forward a few seconds and we’re introduced to our main characters Babak (Shahab Hosseini) and Neda (Niousha Noor), a married couple hanging out with their close friends, drinking, playing games, and generally making merry. Poor Babak has a tooth ache and decides to call the night and the two head home. Arguing in the car about general things, Babak and Neda mysteriously run out of gas and are forced to take refuge in a local hotel that has it’s lights on. However, once the two get inside, they realize that they can’t escape. Confronted by mysterious demonic type creatures and various hallucinations, Neda and Babak are tortured by the demons, whispering hints of inner secrets and the obvious solution. Say the truth and it will set you free from this hell.

Needless to say, I’m going to have a hard time unfolding all of this. Too much and I spoil the entire film, but if I don’t say SOME of the spoilers, I’m just throwing you in blind to what seems like a run of the mill thriller, just with an Iranian cast. It’s pretty obvious after watching halfway through that marriage is the core concept of the film. Babak and Neda are living a lie to each other, and are caught in a marriage hampered by lies. Each of them has a secret, and that secret is killing them from the inside out. The hotel is nothing but a world between worlds where the two are lured into, where they are forced to confront their own demons and try to make right with each, and themselves. Neda is carrying the secret of an aborted child (thus the hallucinations she has of a 6 year old child calling for his mother), and Babak harbors the secret of infidelity (naturally the beautiful young woman who haunts his every waking steps), and the demonic hotel slowly, but surely, forces the couple to face their inner demons and escape…. Or stay within the confines of the hellish hotel for all of eternity.

Again, I can’t unpack this all or I’d spend over 4 pages just unpacking the entire movie. But needless to say this is a VERY dense movie with a lot of clues that you really have to pay attention to in order to grasp what’s going on. It’s also very David Lynchian in how the story unfolds, with time jumps, universe jumps, and ambiguous scenes that allow the audience to piece together what is going on, but at the same time leave enough to the imagination for you to really only GUESS at some scenes (such as what happens to Babak, did he really escape the hotel for that brief moment? Who did he see in the bathtub? And many more). It’s a massively dense film and takes a lot of effort to unpack, but at the same time I don’t hail the movie as an utter masterpiece as much as I enjoyed it. Kourosh Ahari does a great job with all of the visual cues and with the slow pacing at which he puts everything together, but sometimes ambiguity can be a bad thing. I had to REALLY work at putting it all into a complete puzzle, and only did so with the help of at least 3 of us bouncing theories off of each other until the story seemed clear enough. Basically, David Lynchian as I said. It’s a strange watch, but a fascinating one, and if you can piece all the puzzle pieces together, it makes for a very rewarding watch. One that took me several times to watch and each time I gained something new from the experience.




Rating:

Not Rated by the MPAA




Video:

The film isn’t GREAT on Blu-ray, but it isn’t bad either. It’s a solid looking picture that’s heavily stylized to live in the dim workings of the hotel. It’s coated in a typical dark blue tinge that’s very popular these days, with splashes of gold highlights from the dim lighting, as well as bits of gray ash as well. Detail levels range from good to great, with intricate details on the tattoos and the clothing, but black levels looking murky and noisy sometimes. It’s a heavily stylized event to say the least, and while you can tell some of the obvious signs of using low light cheaper digital cameras, the overall image clarity and color reproduction is quite nice.






Audio:

The audio is another good mix, but like the video, not a GREAT mix. It’s a quiet front heavy affair for large portions of the movie, but has a massive dynamic range that really jump starts you when something more intense happens (demonic visit, crash on the door, etc etc etc), ripping you out of the seat and throwing you around the room (so to speak). Bass is quiet and simple at first, but when things go crazy it’s a rip roaring experience. The same goes for the surrounds which show creaks, groans, and screams emanating from different rooms. However, it goes back to extremely front heavy for the rest of the film, and I did notice that the dynamic range was incredibly wide, meaning whispers and vocals could be a HAIR lower than I’d like them to be only for the track to slam you into your seat with something more intense and powerful. Not enough to have me raising and lowering the volume, but just something to take note of.









Extras:

• Trailers

Final Score: ​

The Night is a dense and rather deep thriller that takes a horror (esque) look at a failing marriage, and does so quite well. I was really impressed with how intense it was, even though the acting by some of the supporting characters (the cop especially) was rather weak. Shahab Hosseini and Niousha Noor were fantastic in the lead roles, and even though I was VERY confused on the 1st time watching, the movie does reward you quite handsomely if you have the patience to dig deeper and really look. The Blu-ray is solid enough with good audio and video, but only a trailer on the disc for any extras. Definitely worth checking out.


Technical Specifications:

Starring: Shahab Hosseini, Niousha Noor, George Maguire, Michael Graham, Elester Latham, Armin Amiri
Directed by: Kourosh Ahari
Written by: Kourosh Ahari, Milad Jarmooz
Aspect Ratio: 2.39:1 AVC
Audio: Persian: DTS-HD MA 5.1, Persian DTS-HD MA 2.0
Subtitles: English
Studio: Scream Factory
Rated: NR
Runtime: 105 Minutes
Blu-ray Release Date: July 13th 2021

Recommendation: Worth Watching

 

[tripplej]

Thanks for the review. Never heard of this one but after reading the review, will check it out .

 

[Todd Anderson]

This one's on my list!

 

[Michael Scott]

This one's on my list!

knowing your tastes you very well may like it a lot. It's not super art house at all, but rather a good DENSE psychological thriller. It requires a lot of patience and a keen eye, but I feel it pays off in the end

 

[Todd Anderson]

knowing your tastes you very well may like it a lot. It's not super art house at all, but rather a good DENSE psychological thriller. It requires a lot of patience and a keen eye, but I feel it pays off in the end

i think you might be giving me far too much credit . (Or, maybe not enough credit… I’m not sure which!)