The Night (Kourosh Ahari, 2020): US

This film was reviewed by Jacob Mohler at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival 2020.

The Night is about an Iranian couple living in Los Angeles. They are on their way home from a friend’s house when they decide to stay at a hotel and weird things start to happen to them. This film is directed, written and produced by Kourosh Ahari (Director of “Generations”).

The film starts off late one evening, Babek (played by Shahab Hosseini), his wife Neda (played by Niousha Jafarian) and newborn baby are driving home from a friend’s house. Babek is a little tipsy and can’t keep control over their vehicle. They both decide it’d be safer if they stayed at a hotel.

The hotel location was picked very well. The Hotel Normandie is a real hotel that you can stay at in Los Angeles. It’s located in a really eerie neighborhood which helps boost the solitary, lonely feeling you feel for the characters. This was a brilliant choice made by the crew.

They check-in and right off the bat, to add to the overall creepy factor, the man at the receptionist table is creepy. He is missing part of a finger and just gives off a bad vibe.

The hotel receptionist is played by George Maguire who’s worked with Director Kourosh Ahari on one of his other projects, “Generations”. Maguire really does a great job with this role. The only role I can compare this performance to is Joe Turkel’s character Lloyd from Stanley Kubrick’s 1980 film “The Shining”. Both characters have ominous ways of looking, talking and just the overall way that they carry themselves.

The couple checks into their room. When Babek goes to the bathroom Neda hears a boy calling for his mother. She goes to check it out when the boy turns down a hallway and disappears.

While she’s hearing the boy, Babek is seeing a random woman everywhere. This woman appears in his room by the window. Every time he approaches her she disappears.

The couple are frightened and upset from all of these occurrences, so they decide to call the police. When the officer arrives weird things start to happen again.

After the officer leaves they decide to pack their things and leave the hotel. They run downstairs to leave and the doors won’t open. The hotel is keeping them in. They are now fighting for their lives to escape this hotel.

This was a really well-made thriller. I don’t usually like scary films but this film had enough of a storyline that kept me interested.

When it comes to a horror film I prefer a psychological thriller over a slasher. The entities that keep haunting the couple kept me wondering “who are these people?”, “do they have any relation to the couple?”, “Why do they seem to want to cause the couple harm?”. When a film makes me think about the characters and their stories it definitely makes it more enjoyable for me.

On the acting side, I felt that both Hosseini and Jafarian did a very good job. One of my favorite scenes that really showcased their acting abilities would be when Jafarian’s character Neda is being tormented by the hotel and she reveals to her husband that the little boy she keeps seeing is a child she aborted 4 years prior. When she makes that reveal you can almost see a complete shift in emotion for Neda. It’s as if a weight has been lifted.

The cinematography in this film was very key to the story. One of the coolest sequences in the film would be when Babek is scouring the hotel for a different way out. It’s a series of shots, some in the first person and some tracking shots. He travels through the dark kitchen headed for the back door when the mysterious woman he keeps seeing appears. This whole section of the film was really well made.

I thoroughly enjoyed seeing this film, especially in a theater with a full audience. Being able to hear screams and gasps and see people jump enhanced the viewing experience for me. I highly recommend this film to anyone that enjoys thinking about the characters and being scared mentally.