Excellent but underrated film

Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

The acting in this movie is really good.

Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

It's the 1930s in rural New Zealand. Two nurses are resident in a country house caring for a young invalid. The setting is apparently tranquil - but somewhere in the area roams a deranged killer with an apparent predilection for strangling nurses. As night falls, a series of odd accidents leaves the two nurses shuttered in the house, with a building fear that they may not be completely alone.This debut feature from New Zealand writer/director Alex Galvin is a slow-burning thriller that rewards close attention. The film eschews cheap frights early on to build up a gradually mounting tension, aided by an effectively eerie score. When the suspense breaks, there are some genuine scares and unnerving twists that leave the viewer perched on the edge of the sofa.Impressively slick for its reportedly low budget, When Night Falls has some clear Hitchcockian touches, but it also brings to mind an Agatha Christie-style closed room mystery, while the disorienting movement around the cavernous old house at times give the film an almost David Lynch-like creepiness.

Shot digitally on a budget, this thriller from New Zealand manages to be intriguing enough until the last 20 minutes. The film doesn't lose any time establishing the premise. Our protagonist Louise is a nurse. She takes care of an ill patient in an isolated mansion, who will require more oxygen. This forces the groundsman to leave the mansion. The doctor has other things to attend to and this means Louise will have to spend the night there with the house Mrs. Jacobs, the housekeeper and another nurse, Martha Davis. Three women and a weak man spending a night in such a remote location shouldn't be a problem. Except there is a serial killer on the loose. And he happens to target nurses. These events take place in 1932 and for the most part, first-time writer/director Alex Galvin goes for a nostalgic feel half way between Hitchcockian thrillers and slasher films from the late 70s and early 80s. Except he doesn't have the directorial skills of the masters of old and it shows here. The result looks more like a humorless take on the game Clue, or a murder mystery you would play out with friends, then a legitimate thriller.The setting, it must be said, is amazing. The old mansion is truly gorgeous and very evocative. It has been pointed out to me by another user that the director actually shot the movie in several different houses, choosing rooms as suitable and as evocative as possible.The acting on display here is pretty weak. Tania Nolan as the protagonist nurse has the pretty face and angelic look but is pretty wooden. The other main actress is the other nurse, played by Rosella Hart. The housekeeper and the ill patient have very few scenes and not much is demanded of them acting-wise. The first two-third of When Night Falls rely on good old suspense. The night falls, there are noises, there is tension, things are not right. There's no action scene here. Just interaction between the characters and walking around this gorgeous residence while contemplating how best to spend this night, hoping the killer is not around. Things pick up in the last third, where the tension heightens. Unfortunately, the movie becomes even more horrendous. As Galvin reveals more and more of the mystery, our reaction as the audience is "huh, that's what is going on?". The music score, which was weak and over-dramatic from the start becomes unsustainable. As the film focuses less on the unknown and the fantastic mansion, Galvin has to direct real thrilling scenes and fails. The action sequence are of the worse amateurish kind and our two main actresses may be very pretty, but become terribly unconvincing. I'm disappointed. As I write these lines, this movie is rated a very good 7.2 with seven reviews, most of which are glowing and praising various aspects of the film which obviously deserves none of that. When Night Falls seems like a labor of love by a group of amateurs and there is nothing wrong with that. I'm sure Galvin did his best. He established a nice air of suspense early, adopted a classic feel instead of cheap modern clichés and used a jaw-dropping film location. But the actual direction, cinematography, music, acting and the story? It's all weak. An honest rating could hardly go above 5 and I personally feel it is worth a 3.

To be honest, it was nice to see a locally made film, independent at that, making a refreshing spin on a suspense thriller of bygone days but in a modern style. Well worth watching, and beautifully produced.Certainly this film has been a labor of love, as this is seen in the way all the actors came across in the film. At times the way the film was shot, you felt at times that you in the actors shoes and were actually experiencing the film.Other times you felt the influences of Steven King, and all the other old masters of the suspense genre style, through out the film in the way it was shot. I can see this cast and crew go forward onto bigger and better productions. It is sometimes hard to realize that this is a first full length feature film they have made, and also having the hard task of writing the script producing and directing this all on a shoe string budget.Plus shooting the whole film in just 10 days. I shall wait with baited breath to see how the next project produced goes, will it or will it not be a follow on. I suppose only time will tell

Call me a wimp, but this film really scared me!!I can't remember the last time I was so on edge in movie theatre. Right from the first scene in the hospital ward (which made me and my friends jump out of our seats), there's a feeling of real dread and terror. And things just keep getting darker...I think the main reason the film works so well is because the director realises that what we don't see can be much scarier than what we do see. The villain is only exposed near the very end, but you can feel his presence in every scene.The other great strength of the film is its music. It's very beautiful, but also unsettling and very haunting.The only weakness, I think, is at the end where the suspense gets replaced by non-stop action. It was all well shot and staged, but I think the suspense worked better! We can see action like that in any slasher film.