So I’m a sucker for Scandinavian horror films, having spent an idyllic month in Norway many years ago, falling in love with the fjords and the people. Although cult classics like Midsommer (2003) and The Ritual (2017) have come and gone yet bask in streaming glory, we now have a new entry into the genre: Nightborn, from Finland with love. It stars Rupert Grint of Harry Potter fame as Jon, the clueless (and fussy) British Dad, with Seidi Haarla (love the name) as Saga, his wife, soon a new mother. And last but not least, there’s a very hairy baby who is pretty much the center of attention and plot. He/it’s a charmer. I’ll just note that once he starts crying, you want him to stop. (“Please. Now I’m begging. Make that baby stop!”)
Nightborn begins with a drive into the Finnish countryside, down a narrow dirt road into a forest. In the car sits a happy couple, smiling and joking as they arrive at their new/old house, which was apparently inherited by Saga, as it’s the country house at which she would spend her childhood summers. These appear to have been quite some time ago. A Finnish fixer-upper, it’s a mishmash of rotten boards, cobwebs, and abandoned, mossy squalor. A tree grows from the floor of one room—Saga’s old playroom..
In this world, trees are quite important. And persistent. Jon cuts down the tree in the playroom and later it reappears, growing through a hole in the floor. One of their first acts in their new home is making love against a gnarly, venerable tree of some sort (looked vaguely oak), with Saga inviting Jon to “make me a mother.” And wouldn’t you know it, lickety-splitly a month later she’s pregnant, and before long the baby—um, er, “it”—is born.
Any couples curious about childcare should probably avoid this movie. Mom calls the baby “it.” She’s certain there’s something wrong with it. Dad and the doctors all seem rather blithe about the baby’s . . . peculiarities. These include a) it bites off the tip of its cousin’s finger; b) it smashes its grandfather in the head with a jar; and c) most importantly, it has rather bizarre feeding habits. For instance, it chews Saga’s nipples bloody when it tries to nurse. Not a fan of mother’s milk, instead it prefers bloody meat. While Saga recognizes “That boy ain’t right” Dad and the others insist just give him some time/it’s all perfectly normal. As if commanded to by the forest, Saga names the baby “Kuura,” which means “frost” or “hoarfrost” in Finnish. Cold iron burns like fire when it touches Kuura’s skin. (Perhaps because iron axes fell trees?)
By the end the audience agrees with Saga: Kuura is not perfectly normal. The final scene is deliciously over-the-top, both gruesome and funny. Although at times Saga struggles to accept her son, by the movie’s end she’s developed quite an outlandish coping mechanism. Essentially she gives in and becomes attuned to the forest world while Jon remains clueless. When they first arrive at the house he wonders about all the rusted vehicles and machinery that line the property. Later Saga discovers this is purposeful. Her grandmother is said to have explained it’s to keep the evil forest spirits at bay, a protective wall of rusted stuff. Urban-fussy Jon has it removed and the property “cleaned up,” with disastrous consequences.
Nightborn appears to be based in part on a Finnish folktale. As a writer who has used folktales in his contemporary fiction, I’ll note it’s harder than it looks. One of the tricks is making the folklore/supernatural elements seamlessly jibe with the contemporary, “realistic” elements of the story. For the most part, Nightborn succeeds: At times we the audience can question the seemingly supernatural elements of the story and wonder if they’re all just figments of Saga’s post-partum imagination. But by the end, the film crystallizes its mayhem. It’s not fuzzy. And not just “metaphorical.” Something dark and sinister lurks in the Finnish forests. Perhaps conceiving a child against the rough bark of an oak tree is just asking for trouble.