{"id":291858,"date":"2026-02-15T01:10:08","date_gmt":"2026-02-15T01:10:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/291858\/"},"modified":"2026-02-15T01:10:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-15T01:10:08","slug":"a-gory-finnish-parenting-horror","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/291858\/","title":{"rendered":"A Gory Finnish Parenting Horror"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tA bad case of the baby blues turns into a gory fight for survival in Nightborn (Y\u00f6n Lapsi), Finnish writer-director Hanna Bergholm\u2019s worthy follow-up to her well-received 2022 debut, Hatching<\/a>. <\/p>\n

\n\tLike that movie, which combined horror and fantasy tropes with f***ed-up family dynamics, the director\u2019s second feature focuses on a couple in the aftermath of their child\u2019s birth \u2014 an already anxiety-ridden event that\u2019s compounded many times over by the fact that their baby boy is some kind of bloodsucking abomination of nature.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tNightborn\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\tThe Bottom Line<\/p>\n

\tDo not check the children.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\tVenue: Berlin Film Festival (Competition)
Cast: Seida Haarla, Rupert Grint, Pamela Tola, Pirkko Saisio, Rebecca Lacey, John Thomson
Director: Hanna Bergholm
Screenwriters: Ilja Rautsi, Hanna Bergholm
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t1 hour 32 minutes\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\tOr is he? Part of what makes Nightborn both stomach-churning and thought-provoking is how all the crazy stuff happening is just a slightly \u2014 okay, substantially \u2014 exaggerated version of the reality so many first-time parents face. The movie\u2019s many metaphors are certainly on the nose, which can feel a bit redundant once we get the gist of it. But Bergholm has a deft, darkly comic touch that turns classic child-rearing moments (breastfeeding, a baby\u2019s first steps, a dinner session in a highchair) into gross-out sequences that make you want to laugh and cringe at the same time.<\/p>\n

\n\tThere\u2019s plenty of sordid irony from the get-go as we watch expecting couple Saga (Seida Haarla) and Jon (Rupert Grint<\/a>) drive down a twisting forest road toward their isolated country home, which is run-down, abandoned and ripe for plenty of horror hijinks. Saga is Finnish and Jon is British, which means they mostly communicate in English (a convenient trick to lend the film international appeal). It also means that Jon feels a bit out of place in a strange land where even stranger things start happening once they settle in.<\/p>\n

\n\tBergholm, who co-wrote the script with Ilja Rautsi, establishes a tone that\u2019s both unsettling and outrageous, especially when she match-cuts from an orgasm scene to a birth scene, the baby popping out in a nasty close-up that leaves Jon drenched in blood. Things get much freakier when Saga learns that her little tot is covered in body hair, then tries to breastfeed \u201cit\u201d \u2014 she refuses to call it \u201chim\u201d \u2014 and nearly loses a nipple.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe couple has clearly created a monster. And yet, part of what makes Nightborn so fun and compelling is that they might just be overreacting to the insanity a baby brings into the life of any new parent, especially when it refuses to sleep and cries all day long. \u201cYour boy is perfectly healthy,\u201d a pediatrician tells them, offering scant comfort when their child, who Saga has christened with the weird mystical name of Kuura, starts precociously sitting up and eventually walking, while also developing a taste for blood.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIt just takes and takes and takes,\u201d Saga shouts during one of her many overtired freak-outs, speaking a truth that lots of debuting mothers have to reckon with. And yet, she can\u2019t help developing a growing attachment to Kuura, especially when it comes to their mutual attraction to the spooky forest surrounding their abode. It turns out Saga has much more in common with her monster baby then she thinks. Meanwhile, Jon finds himself in the same position as so many dads who, at some point, realize they\u2019re a bit of a third wheel beside the inseparable duo of mother and child.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe director cleverly dishes out these double meanings from start to finish, fusing the parental experience with tons of gore, hysteria, visual gags and occasional jump scares.\u00a0 A particular standout is a \u201chere comes the airplane\u201d feeding scene that completely flies off the rails, revealing to what extent the happy household has been turned upside-down.<\/p>\n

\n\tThere are a few other freakish laugh-out-loud moments, although there are also times when the metaphor Bergholm keeps hammering into our skulls becomes repetitive. Her sense of humor is what often saves the day, with stars Haarla (Compartment No. 6<\/a>) and Grint (who played Ron Weasley in the Harry Potter films) truly unafraid to do some batshit crazy things on screen, including fighting at one point over their baby\u2019s blood snack.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe craft level of Nightborn is also a plus, whether it\u2019s the fairytale-like lensing of Pietari Peltola, the creepy living spaces of Kari Kankaanp\u00e4\u00e4\u2019s sets, or the combination of puppets and CGI that turn Kuura into a wicked little cutie whom we hardly ever see in the daylight.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn fact, it\u2019s never fully clear what kind of creature the baby even is: a vampire? A troll? A killer garden gnome? But that also seems to be the point. Kuura is every new parent\u2019s fear wrapped into one tiny package \u2014 wailing day and night, refusing to eat or sleep, making you want to rethink your family planning and reach for that box of contraceptives.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A bad case of the baby blues turns into a gory fight for survival in Nightborn (Y\u00f6n Lapsi),…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":291859,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[138345,26263,148416,147642,146,85,46,397,91634],"class_list":{"0":"post-291858","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-berlin-2026","9":"tag-berlin-film-festival","10":"tag-berlin-film-festival-2026","11":"tag-berlin-film-festival-reviews","12":"tag-entertainment","13":"tag-il","14":"tag-israel","15":"tag-movies","16":"tag-rupert-grint"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/291858","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=291858"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/291858\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/291859"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=291858"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=291858"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=291858"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}