Nightwatch (1997) on Netflix
R19971h 41mDramaHorrorThriller
Martin Bells, a law student, takes a night watchman's job at a hospital morgue. A necrophiliac serial killer is murdering prostitutes, and Inspector Thomas Cray treats him as the lead suspect.
- Netflix3.3/5
- IMDb6.2/1022,993 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes27%
Trailer
Plot summary
A hospital morgue needs someone on duty through the night, and Martin Bells, a law student, takes the post, expecting long quiet hours for study and treating his own paranoia in the setting as the worst of his problems. Meanwhile a necrophiliac serial killer is murdering prostitutes, and Inspector Thomas Cray is running the investigation into the killings. Martin is drawn into one of the killings and treated as a suspect, and clues he finds begin to implicate him. His best friend is James Gallman, who is dealing with alcohol, drugs and paid sex, and James's girlfriend is Marie.
Cast
- Anais Evansas Leanne
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Nightwatch (1997)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- It was Ewan McGregor's first American film, and the Scottish actor put on a fake American accent to play law student Martin Bells. Shooting took place around Los Angeles, in Culver City and at UCLA.
- Miramax ordered so many test screenings and reshoots that McGregor had to fly back to Los Angeles and cancel a two-day holiday planned with his wife and baby daughter. Dimension also cut back Lauren Graham's role as Marie and added what it called a more satisfying final scene.
- Director Ole Bornedal watched the original cut with co-writer Steven Soderbergh and David Bowie, and all three enjoyed it. Bornedal said the version released was the fourth cut, and that the American Nightwatch he made was not the one audiences saw.
- Kyle Cooper, who also made the titles for Seven and Mimic, built the opening sequence from photographs of women with their eyes scratched out, matching the killer's habit of removing his victims' eyes. Cooper shot the photographs underwater so they would ripple on screen.
- Steven Soderbergh was said to have sanitised Ole Bornedal's 1994 Danish script: a scene in which the character Jens orders a prostitute to perform oral sex on Martin became James ordering a handjob instead.
- Songs by Garbage were dropped in post-production. The band's "Only Happy When It Rains" was swapped for Transister's "House to Myself", and "Supervixen" for R.E.M.'s "The Wake-Up Bomb", with R.E.M.'s "Man on the Moon" also cut.
- In 2019 Ewan McGregor said Harvey Weinstein ruined the film, claiming the cast were made to reshoot everything and that whatever was interesting had been replaced.
- Cinematographer Dan Laustsen's work on Nightwatch caught the eye of Guillermo del Toro, who hired him for Mimic; Laustsen went on to a long career in the United States.
