Nightmare (2022) – A Chilling Exploration of Terror’s Underbelly.
Cinema has always captured the unsettling blend of nightmares and reality, This trait is taken to the next step by Nightmare (2022). Norwegian filmmaker Kjersti Helen Rasmussen depicts her work as an intricate psychological horror movie that seems to slowly pull its audience deep into the dark reality where sleep isn’t the place of refuge anymore, it’s turned into a warzone. Blending otherworldly fiction with psychological horror, Nightmare stirs the audience’s imagination and raises questions about the nature and control of dreams over the human mind.
Nora (Eili Harboe, Thelma), a woman looking for a fresh start with her boyfriend Robby (Herman Tømmeraas, Skam) is the focal point protagonist of the show. The couple moves into new apartment and to the dream full of hope as an beginning makes the Stella and Ahmnod away from an rootline. Mona quickly transforms from chronically excited, to terrified as hyper realistic nightmares rob her comfort.
Initially, these nightmares feel like just the typical form of bad dreams. It is not until Mona wakes up from them to realize that she is paralyzed in sleep and shadow-like creatures are getting close to her. Managing to control herself has only added to her ever growing fear. On top of this she also has unexplanable bruises on her body. This means that something else is at play and the boundary between reality and her dreams is being breached.
As Mona continues getting sleep deprived, the world around her starts fading away. She now sees ghostly silhouettes in her peripheral vision that check her surroundings and whisper incomprehensible sentences. This, on top of her strained relationship with Robby, whom dispises her fears and uses her stress against her, only puts her deeper into the nightmare’s clutches. But Mona knows that without her worst nightmares, something has been waiting to feed on them from inside their new house.
In search for answers, she digs into the appartment’s dark history. And while that does provide some understanding and clarity towards her visions, it poses the real threat. With sleepless and violent nights filling the room, Mona soon learns that she is not afraid of sleep, but death.
Psychological nuance and other themes
Nightmare (2022) stands apart from most works through its profound psychological core. It captures the fear of sleep paralysis, loss of control, and simply being confined within the mental prison of one’s self. In doing so, it further evokes the following questions:
What if our dreams were not mere figments of the imagination, but something more tangible?
Does trauma have the potential to manifest itself in unfathomable ways?
What actually takes place when both the body and the mind fail to have faith in each other?
Just like Mona, real life sufferers of sleep paralysis disorder (an individual who awakens but cannot move their body) often has hallucinations with a vision of darker shadowy figures. Given the context of the film, this disturbing phenomenon becomes all the more scary for those that are already afflicted with the condition.
Another dimension which Nightmare deals with is the minutia of mental illness, trauma, and even supernatural possession, which have all been carefully entwined to fit in the frame of horror. As Mona spirals into paranoia and fear, the viewers are ultimately left pondering over whether the terrors she is subjected to are actually real or a mere product of the splintered mind.
Cinematic Style & Atmosphere
Nightmare contains scenes whose visual treatment echoes the chilling aesthetic of Nordic folklore. The imagery is shadowy, featuring dim lighting, muted colors, and super-saturated claustrophobic framing to amplify the feeling of isolation and dread. Indeed, the apartment itself is a character slowly closing in on Mona as the dreams heighten.
Sound design is key in setting suspense as the film includes unnerving murmurs, ghostly voices, and echoes that creep in from the remote edges of consciousness making the audience as helpless and caged as Mona. Each heartbeat pulse of the foreboding, skeletal score drowns the audience, amplifying the discomfort felt from every corner, while each pas de deux step in Mona’s nightma’s is teken emberging her from the suffocaiiton.
Kjersti Helen Rasmussen dances around the psychological tension and supernatural horror with perfect cohesion, controlling everything; the terror does not reside in visions, rather in the ambience of the film. More so the dream sequences amplifying the notion of sleep paralysis for being so exquisitely modified makes them uniquely disturbing.
Character Analysis and Performances
Eili Harboe as Mona is likely the decisive factor for the success of Nightmare. Harboe is well known for her breakout role in Thelma (2017). Over the course of the movie, one can observe how she emotionally breaks apart due to overwhelming fear and fatigue. The way she depicts silent terror, breath trembling, hands shaking, and eyes wide open in panic works efficiently towards shaping the character’s experience as brutally authentic.
Mona’s character benefits from her chemistry with Herman Tømmeraas, who plays Robby, her boyfriend. Robby loves Mona, but he also fears and dismisses her concerns about terrifying things she has to face. He represents the famous skeptic partner in horror films. The film manages to go beyond the singular portrayal of life as suffering by examining the inexplicable strain that these things put on relationships.
The supporting cast enhances the sense of uneasiness because Mona’s dreams fill with ominous and enigmatic silhouettes that mix her fears and danger from outside.
Critical Reception and Legacy
After being released, Nightmare (2022) was met with praise due to their unorthodox way of putting horror to film with critics noting the psychological severity of the shattering atmosphere as well as Harboe’s performance. While some viewers searching for traditional jump scares may find it troubling, fans of fellow filmmakers, Aster (Hereditary, Midsommar) and Eggers (The Witch, The Lighthouse), will welcome such pacing and dread.
It has been said that the film resembles the other Nordic horror classics Let the Right One in (2008) and Thelma (2017) that contain subtle horror elements and romance. It also reminds one of films such as The Babadook (2014) and It Follows (2014) that uses horror to portray personal trauma.
Nightmare (2022) is, without a doubt, a brilliant piece of film-making. The premise really hooks you, the cinematography is breathtaking, and the depiction of psychological horror is disturbing, yet so relatable. This all together shows a deeper, more breathtaking side to horror, which cements it’s place as a must watch for the fans of intelligent horror.