Day 202: Nightwatch

Overshadowed in later years by the Russian Nightwatch, this little horror nugget came out while Ewan McGregor's star was on the rise. I first saw it in college, while I was working at a video store.

Nightwatch has a pretty simple premise, a young man goes to work as a night shift security guard at a morgue. There just so happens to be a sting of serial killings happening around this time and the guard (McGregor) keeps finding himself at the wrong place in the wrong time so that the man investigating the case (Nick Nolte) has no choice but to investigate him. So, to clear his name, McGregor tries to find the real killer and bad things happen.

The main thing I remember about this movie was how tortured McGregor's American accent was. In future movies he would learn to master it, he was still very much shaky in this one. Also, Nolte made some ridiculous choices regarding his character's hair. Ole Bornedal, who directed the original Danish version, was brought on board to direct this American remake. He did not seem to have a good grip on the actors here. Besides the Goonies, this is the first movie I remember seeing Josh Brolin in and I was impressed by his work here. Brad Dourif turns in another great creepy performance as a morgue doctor who you just know there is something wrong with.

If you can get past the weird acting decisions, there is a pretty solid thriller here. You will probably guess the real killer way before the movie gets there. I would say this is not an essential part of the horror cannon.