‘Nightmare’ (2023) review: Ambitious pregnancy horror missing mystery

A little more mystery could have made for a more suspenseful film.

September 25, 2023

Nightmare, a horror film following a young couple forced to confront some of the worst things they can imagine, comes to Shudder on September 29th as part of the streaming service’s annual FearFest. With premieres of new Shudder Originals every week in October and September, Nightmare is the last original film to premiere for the month of September.

The debut feature film of Norwegian director (and writer) Kjersti Helen Rasmussen, Nightmare begins with a young couple, in their mid-twenties, moving into an apartment building. Mona and Robby seem like they have it pretty good; Robby’s got a good job, and Mona gets to stay home fixing up the apartment. When they welcome their friends over for a housewarming party, the friends can’t help but inquire as to how the 25 year old pair can afford such a place while only one of them has a job. Mona and Robby then reveal, in a moment that feels like you’ve seen it 1000 times before, that someone died in the apartment.

The central problem with Nightmare is that any intrigue set up by foreshadowing comes across as heavy-handed foretelling. So much of where Nightmare will be headed is given away within the first 30 minutes; the film’s introduction sequence describes the phenomena of sleep paralysis, to let you know that this film is, literally, about nightmares. The grating screams of a neighbor’s infant that ring through the apartment building shortly after Mona and Robby have moved in feel like too obvious a calling card for what is to come later. When you find out that the person who died in the apartment was pregnant, even more mystery is taken away.

Henri Fuseli’s The Nightmare (1781) serves as inspiration for the actual nightmare of this film. Mona tags along with a neighbor to a lecture on nightmares and sleep paralysis, where she learns about the myth of the Mare. Although everything seems pretty good on the outside for Mona and Robby since they moved into their new apartment, Mona has been having terrifying nightmares that blur the line between dream and reality. Eventually, Mona gets in touch with the doctor who spoke on sleep paralysis at the lecture to see if he can help with her troubled sleep.

Nightmare is ambitious in it’s approach to tackle both sleep paralysis and pregnancy horror, a sub-genre that’s not only one of my personal favorites, but also one that’s been having a moment the last few years. Nightmare is a welcome addition along the ranks of other recent pregnancy horror films like Clock, False Positive, and Huesera. Not long after moving into the apartment together, despite the neighbors ever-screaming infant and strange things going on with Mona, Mona and Robby are considering having a baby.

Shudder

While horror fans will find an obvious comparison to both Nightmare on Elm Street and Rosemary’s Baby in Nightmare, I find it has much more in common with other pregnancy horror films of the last decade like the ones listed above, all of which were written by women (I would be remiss if I didn’t mention my personal favorite pregnancy horror film, 2014’s Lyle, which has also been compared to Rosemary’s Baby). There’s also more than a hint of Nolan’s Inception in the latter half of Nightmare.

Visually, Nightmare has moment’s that are reminiscent of Gaspar Noé’s work; there’s a frenetic, jolting pace, and an ambiguity to what is real and what takes place in Mona’s dream state. While Nightmare makes no great effort to hide it’s influences, Rasmussen does so without being derivative. It’s not the most original horror film you will see this year, but it offers a fresh perspective on the haunted house, possession, and pregnancy genres.