31 Nights of Halloween Horror - Night 20 - The Nightshifter

The Nightshifter

110 mis.

Dir. Dennison Ramalho

2018/Brazil

Seems Coffin Joe isn’t the only horror coming out of Brazil.  Director Dennison Ramalho’s (who also wrote the screenplay for Coffin Joe’s Embodiment of Evil) debut is an interesting very different take on someone who can communicate with the dead.

Stenio works in the morgue, his wife Odete is disgusted with him and tells him every chance she gets.  He has two kids, a bratty son and a younger daughter who seems to be the only one who respects him.  Seems Stenio has a special ability that he tells no one else about, he can speak with the cadavers that are brought into the morgue.  Most start off confused, asking where they are, asking Stenio to let their families know what happened, etc.  But Stenio never acts on these requests and never tells anyone about these interactions.  One day a gang member comes in and ridicules Stenio for the coward he is and reveals he knows his wife is cheating on him with the owner of the local bakery that Stenio frequents.  When Stenio does some investigating, he finds the acquisitions to be true and puts in motion and act of violence that eliminates the baker and unexpectedly is wife too.

It’s all down hill from here when Stenio’s wife rolls into the morgue and after talking with him finds out that it was he that was involved with her murder.  Hell hath no fury like a ghost out for revenge.  Odete will stop at nothing to ruin Stenio, even threatening the life of her children to do so.  She was a cold hearted bitch in life and even more so in death.

From there, the film breaks in a haunting territory, first subtly with closing doors and things moving on their own.  Objects turning up in different spots, and unexplained things happening.  But once Odete lets her presence be known to Stenio he desperately tries to do everything to save his family but at what cost.

The Nighshifter definitely takes a somewhat original approach on communicating with the dead, when the dead talk, it is through a CGI superimposed face over the still cadaver face which gives it a somewhat other worldly effect.  When it works, its great, when it doesn’t, it looks cheap.  But there are plenty practical effects throughout the film with corpses being opened and autopsied to worry this is a CGI driven film.

Story wise it drags in parts, but despite it’s longer running time I felt totally holds your interest to see where this is all going to end.  At times creepy and haunting and other times somewhat drama filled, but always captivating enough to make the premise unlike any other movie I can think of.

Want to watch something you haven’t seen before (and you should).  I recommend the Nightshifter.  I really had a good time watching it.  Don’t worry your worn out versions of Halloween and A Nightmare on Elm Street aren’t going anywhere.  Do yourself a favor and check out this flick.  It's kind of fucking awesome.  Because once again, some of the best new horror films out there are not in the US, but overseas.