Overview
- The first trailer, released Thursday, July 2, teases a violent, visceral story in which a new mother grows convinced her newborn is not human.
- Shudder has set a festival-first rollout, with a Fantasia premiere on July 22 followed by the film’s streaming debut on Shudder on July 31.
- Hanna Bergholm directs and co-wrote Nightborn, which stars Seidi Haarla as Saga and Rupert Grint as her husband Jon, with Pamela Tola, Pirkko Saisio, Rebecca Lacey and John Thomson in supporting roles.
- Bergholm and press materials tie the film to Nordic folklore and the Finnish forest as a mirror for inner rage and primitive impulses, and the director says the story draws on her own difficult early motherhood experiences.
- Critics and outlets place Nightborn in a line of maternal-horror films that explore fears around pregnancy and parenthood, and Shudder is using the fast festival-to-stream window to try to drive critical attention and new subscribers.