Review: ‘The Nightshifter’ mines betrayal, revenge & grief into poetic tragedy

Editor’s Note: Review of The Nightshifter may contain spoilers and/or major plot points

Revenge always comes at a heavy price. It’ll be a pound of your own flesh or from those you so dearly love. One way or another, the foul-breathed ghouls that feed upon vengeful vindication will suck you dry and gobble the meat from one’s bones. Such is the case with Dennison Ramalho’s exquisitely-disturbing directorial debut The NightShifter, in which one late-night mortician must contend with his spitefully reactionary behavior and confront the truth once and for all. Daniel de Oliveira inhabits the role of our very flawed protagonist Stênio, who’s caught in a downward emotional and psychological spiral that makes you question the nature of moral and ethical lines. Oliveira’s performance is an expert exhibition of primal rage that tears through his limbs recklessly and without fear of recourse. With his world beginning to shatter, he soon comes eye-to-eye with his demons crawling straight out of the bowels of hell.

From the outset, Stênio has been bestowed with a supernatural gift to communicate with the dead, and his midnight toils soon uncover secrets he had wished would just stay dead. The Sao Paulo underworld of crime and gang violence operates as an appropriately-imposing backdrop to the otherwise emotional intimacy of the narrative, opposing forces which swiftly provoke Stênio to exact questionable revenge upon his cheating wife Odete (played with spitefire conviction by Fabiula Nascimento). The murderous plot abruptly goes awry when Odete becomes collateral damage, leaving her body cold and lifeless in the streets. Such an emotional gut-punch not only gravely impacts Stênio, but their children are now pawns in death’s ultimate chess match. Both Stênio’s guilt and grief collide, a volatile concoction that might drive him mad if his all-consuming thirst for retribution doesn’t do the job first.

Meanwhile, Lara (Bianca Comparato) ⏤ daughter of bakery owner Jaime (Marco Ricca), whose romantic entanglement with Odete drives the vicious carnage forward ⏤ grapples with her father’s savagely-bloody demise and a growing sense of dread. Upon being “marked” for unspeakable misery and terror, Stênio then frantically tries to glue his life back together, keep his mental capacity in working order and deal with Odete’s gnarled clutches grasping at his throat from the other side. Much like his camera work and adept use of mood and tension, Ramalho works his characters into emotional hyper-drive and drains them of everything they can possibly muster. When all bets are off, the final act snaps right in half and proves to be an impeccable showcase of Oliveira’s and Comparato’s god-given on screen talents.

The Nightshifter is out now only on Shudder.

Follow B-Sides & Badlands on our socials: Twitter | Facebook | Instagram