Review: ‘The Night’ leaves quite a nightmarish impression

The black cat has long been used in popular literature and film as a symbol of guilt, an omen of bad luck born out of secrets and lies long buried in the past. Edgar Allen Poe’s “The Black Cat” is among the most well-known stories, adapted countless times onscreen in such films as the Bela Lugosi-starring The Black Cat (1934) and Your Vice is a Locked Room and Only I Have the Key (1972). Screenwriter and director Kourosh Ahari utilizes elements of black cat lore in The Night, co-written with Milad Jarmooz, to regale a dark, twisted tale centered around Ahari’s “fascination with human psychology married with my curiosity of an unknown world,” as he shares in a director’s statement.

Ahari’s directorial debut opens on a dinner party hosted by Farhad (Armin Amiri, The Wrestler) and Mohsen (Ali Kousheshi) in which they engage in a rousing game of Mafia with the film’s two protagonists and young Iranian couple Babak (Shahab Hosseini, The Separation) and Neda Nedari (Niousha Jafarian, Here and Now), as well as their close friend Sara (Gia Mora). Babak and Neda are young, vivacious, and relatively new to America ⏤ which provokes much of the film’s tensions, both within their relationship and the outside world.

When the festivities wind down, Babak and Neda, along with their adorable infant daughter Shabnam, decide to make the 30-minute drive back to their home. Winding their way through Los Angeles, their GPS begins “recalculating” out of control, and they end up driving in circles for two hours. After Babak nearly hits someone wandering in the street, he takes a hard right into a sleazy back alley, where he runs over a stray black cat. Or so he thinks. Tempers flairing, and Shabnam now awake and crying, they locate a nearby hotel for the night to get some rest, opting to drive the rest of the way home the next morning.

Hotel Normandie looms in the darkness, nestled in a sketchy part of town ⏤ but “it’s the closest,” as Babak presses. Upon checking in, the concierage seems friendly enough, perhaps too much so. The little family soon settles into their room, but not before Babak spies an eerie painting of a man with his back reflected twice to the veiwer. It’s an ominous shot, yet seemingly inconsequential. Babak simply shrugs it off. Once in their room, Neda puts Shabnam to bed in a playpen in the next room (it’s a suite, the only room available in the hotel), while Babak grabs a quick shower.

As Babak slides into bed next to his sleeping wife, the camera holds onto the digital clock on the nightstand. It’s just after one o’clock, and his eyelids could not be heavier. He awakens to Shabnam’s cries exactly two hours later and asks Neda to check on her. Nothing appears amiss at first; it’s only after the second wake-up call that reality begins to shift around the couple’s feet. Babak gets up this time to attend to Shabnam and decides to take her downstairs to fill up her bottle to feed her. The concierage is all too eager to help out, even going as far as wanting to feed her. Wary of his intentions, Babak lets him, as the late-night hotel clerk lists off various mass murders, soon veering into ones about dead children.

The Night burns an endless wick, and the night literally seems to drag on and on. It’s a slow-burn by definition, with Babak and Neda’s world devolving like quicksand around them. It begins with hallucinations of a woman and child, who keeps calling out for his “mommy,” but it eventually becomes clear there’s something far more sinister at work. Perhaps the hotel is haunted by tortured spirits of former guests, or just maybe the couple must confront dark secrets in order to be set free. The black cat makes several appearances, as well, punctuating the overwhelming cloud of dread and impending doom.

Hotels have long been the devil’s playground for this sort of familial psychological mayhem, as Bloody Disgusting‘s Meagan Navarro aptly observes. As well-trodden as it might be, The Night reinvigorates the concept with brutally unnerving imagery, a slow yet methodical pace, and gut-wrenching lead performances from both Hosseini and Jafarian. There’s the temptation to dismiss films with such a hyper-focus on character and calculated reveals, but as we’ve seen through films like Relic, therein lies masterclass storytelling. Ahari’s debut is one of those that’ll forever haunt your dreams.

The Night hits VOD on Friday (January 29).

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