Law student Martin Bork (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) is hired as a nightwatchman at a forensic institute in Copenhagen; at the same time, someone is murdering prostitutes in the city.

In this Danish horror hit, we have a series of capably staged shocks; combined with the eerie hospital and morgue milieu they should make your skin crawl. Coster-Waldau helps us identify with the poor student, but the film as a whole suffers from a seemingly inevitable fact: once the killer is exposed to us in the audience, tension pretty much disappears.

Kim Bodnia’s nihilistic buddy becomes a drag after a while.

1994-Denmark. 107 min. Color. Written and directed by Ole Bornedal. Cast: Nikolaj Coster-Waldau (Martin Bork), Sofie Gråbøl (Kalinka Martens), Kim Bodnia (Jens Arnkiel), Lotte Andersen, Ulf Pilgaard, Rikke Louise Andersson… Ulrich Thomsen.

Trivia: Original title: Nattevagten. Followed by Nightwatch: Demons Are Forever (2023). Remade in the U.S. as Nightwatch (1997).