Parenthood has long been fertile ground for horror filmmakers. Few experiences are as life-altering, physically exhausting, and psychologically overwhelming as bringing a new human being into the world, making it an ideal metaphor for stories where realities are shattered and altered in terrifying ways.
Similar to last year's excellent double whammy of Die My Love and If I Had Legs I'd Kick You, Finnish filmmaker Hanna Bergholm explored some of those anxieties through twisted fairy tale imagery in her 2022 debut Hatching, and with Nightborn, she once again transforms the terrifying uncertainty of rearing a child into deeply unsettling body horror. While its supernatural revelations may end up being a little too literal for their own good, Nightborn succeeds thanks to its emotionally grounded performances, relentless atmosphere, and a truthfully uncompromising willingness to embrace just how frightening early parenthood can feel.
Seeking a quieter life away from the chaos of modern civilization, Saga (Seidi Haarla) and her husband Jon (Harry Potter and Servant star Rupert Grint) relocate to a secluded house deep within the Finnish forest, once owned by Saga's grandparents. The aging home is filled with childhood memories but has fallen into disrepair, demanding just as much attention as the new life the couple is preparing to welcome.
After a brutally traumatic childbirth (seriously, be warned now if you're sensitive to blood and such), Saga finds herself physically and emotionally broken, relying on a walker while struggling to bond with her unusually hairy and off-putting newborn son. As sleepless nights pile up and the baby's increasingly disturbing behavior becomes impossible to ignore, Saga begins to wonder whether postpartum depression is distorting her perception, or if something genuinely monstrous has entered her family.
The beauty of Nightborn is how it largely refuses to answer that question outright. For much of its runtime, the film operates as an unnerving psychological fantasy horror story built around every new parent's worst fears.
The baby never stops crying.
Breastfeeding is agonizing. Sleep becomes a distant memory. Jon initially seems better equipped to calm the child than Saga, feeding an insecurity that steadily consumes her confidence as a mother. Every frustration feels amplified because Bergholm understands that horror doesn't always require monsters lurking in the shadows. Sometimes the monster is just, well, exhaustion.
Even before the supernatural elements fully explode, Nightborn is remarkably effective at recreating the suffocating feeling that your entire identity has disappeared beneath the relentless demands of caring for a difficult newborn.
Saga rarely gets a moment to herself, and even when family visits, there's little comfort to be found. Her mother (a pitch-perfect Pirkko Saisio) offers more hard truths than reassurance, recalling that Saga herself was an impossibly challenging baby, adding another layer of generational anxiety to an already fragile emotional state.
When the horror begins bleeding into reality, it does so with admirable restraint. Strange symbols hidden throughout the surrounding forest, distant screams and whispers echoing through the trees, and Saga's growing instinctive understanding of her son's bizarre needs all create a pervasive sense that something ancient has followed them into their isolated home. The baby's aversion to sunlight, preference for blood rather than milk, and violent reactions to cold iron steadily transform parental concern into genuine existential and mythological dread.
One of the film's smartest creative decisions is refusing to actually show the baby’s face for much of its runtime. Bergholm frequently obscures the child in darkness or carefully frames shots to keep the audience questioning exactly what they're seeing. That uncertainty proves far more unsettling than any elaborate creature reveal could have been. Like Saga herself, we're constantly wondering whether we're witnessing actual reality or simply experiencing the world through someone whose mind has been pushed to its breaking point.
The emotional core never gets lost thanks largely to Seidi Haarla (Compartment No. 6), who delivers an exceptional powerhouse performance as Saga. She captures every stage of her character's deterioration with heartbreaking authenticity, balancing maternal love, fear, guilt, resentment, and desperation without ever reducing Saga to a simple horror protagonist making irrational decisions. Even when Saga begins contemplating unimaginable actions, Haarla makes every emotional beat feel painfully understandable. By the time she quietly admits, "Sometimes I think I'm going to kill that child if it doesn't get to me first," the line lands less as shock value than as the devastating culmination of unbearable emotional pressure.
While Nightborn eventually trades some of its strongest psychological tension for more gory monster movie thrills, it never loses sight of its own unique folk horror style or the human tragedy at its center. Bergholm once again proves remarkably skilled at blending intimate emotional storytelling with unsettling folklore and striking body horror, crafting another distinctly Finnish nightmare that feels both deeply personal and universally relatable.
It may feature demonic babies, gruesome violence, and enough nightmare fuel to make audiences wince the next time they hear an infant crying, but Nightborn ultimately understands that the scariest part of becoming a parent isn't the possibility of raising a monster. It's the terrifying fear that you might not be capable of surviving the experience yourself.
‘Nightborn’ is now streaming on AMC+ / Shudder.
