what the film does
martin bork (mcgregor) takes a job as a night watchman at a copenhagen hospital morgue to earn money for law school. his friend josh (brolin) is a medical student with a taste for dares who bets he can spend a night alone with a corpse. a serial killer is murdering prostitutes in the city, removing their eyes. the killer’s latest victim arrives at the morgue. martin starts hearing sounds at night. the morgue doors open by themselves. someone, or something, is in the building with him.
why this one
three reasons. first, the morgue. dan laustsen’s cinematography turns the hospital into a character. the corridors are lit by green fluorescent tubes that flicker and hum. the autopsy room is tiled in white that goes gray at the edges. the freezer drawers are chrome that reflects everything. bornedal builds dread from architecture, not from jump scares. the morgue is the most oppressive enclosed space in 1990s horror outside of event horizon’s spaceship.
second, the cast. mcgregor was between trainspotting and star wars, at his most vulnerable. brolin was early in his career, playing a character whose menace is hidden under charm. nick nolte plays inspector cray, the detective on the serial killer case, with a tired gravity that makes every line read heavier than it should. patricia arquette plays martin’s girlfriend katherine, and the film’s best scene is a quiet conversation between them in a diner that has nothing to do with the plot.
third, soderbergh’s script. the screenplay is tighter than bornedal’s danish original (which ran 139 minutes vs the remake’s 101). soderbergh cut the subplots, sharpened the dialogue, and built the third act around a single reversal that recontextualizes everything martin has experienced. the film’s reputation as a flop is undeserved; it is a methodical, atmospheric thriller that got buried by its distributor.
what stays with me
the scene where martin has to chain-smoke to stay awake during his shift. the morgue is silent. the fluorescents buzz. he walks the corridors alone. the sound design is so empty that when the first noise comes, it is physical. that silence is the film’s real special effect.
on hand
the dvd is the dimension films home video release in the canon.
image: tmdb poster (id 2212); genuine film poster. baked at factor 0.45, 1200x675