Director Melanie Delloy’s psychological thriller, The Nightman, acts as a modernized dark gothic tale by deftly using genre tropes in haunting, atmospheric setting. Set in the Irish wilderness, rife with the dilapidated remains of a bygone era, the movie meditates on themes of repressed trauma, toxic familial bonds, the adverse effects of internalized conservatism and patriarchy—all while incorporating certain folk horror elements. There is a mystifying, melancholic undertone pervading through the movie, very typical of the gothic genre, which enhances the narrative treatment by adding a sense of pathos to it. Backed by strong performances, The Nightman can very well become a favorite of genre fans who want their horror flicks to be moody and emotionally resonant.
Spoilers Ahead
The Miller Family Curse
The Nightman begins with an expectant mother, Alex, sharing her burdens with her psychiatrist. Alex is revealed to have a dark past, as back in her childhood, she had witnessed her abusive father murder her mother following a heated argument. Alex’s confession sets the tone of the movie, as the horrors of the past and our inability to escape them are the central theme of the movie. Alex moves with her husband, Damian Miller, to his stately family manor in the Irish countryside. Alex hasn’t shared the news of her pregnancy with Damian just yet, since he’s remained busy writing his thesis at their former residence in Dublin. Damian’s mother, a dementia-afflicted old woman, has been admitted to the hospital—and Damian is currently in charge of the manor, which he has returned to after 26 years. It is pretty apparent that Damian doesn’t want to share much about his family with Alex, as he remains tight-lipped about his sister, Elizabeth, who passed away at a young age, and wants nothing to do with his ailing mother, Mrs. Miller.Â
Damian shares an old folk tale about his family with Alex. One of their ancestors, Maive O’Brien, mother to identical twin sons, was visited by the Banshee—the wailing female spirit—who wanted Maive to offer one of the children to her. The Banshee had predicted that one among the twins would be blessed with pure goodness of heart, while the other would grow up to be the exact opposite—without identifying which was which. Even though Maive spit on such a proposal back then, later, when both of her sons became mortally ill, she had to sacrifice one of them to the Banshee to protect the other. An aggrieved Maive went insane and took her life by jumping from the same castle tower where she had sacrificed one of her sons to the Banshee. Unknowingly, Maive had saved the so-called malicious, evil child—who grew up to be a notorious figure.
Damian’s Hidden Past
Damian’s family, much like most of the other residents in the area, were hunters, and taking the lives of animals was typically seen as a part of the process of ‘manning up,’ a practice that Damian couldn’t get accustomed to as he later turned vegetarian. Returning to the manor opens up lots of memories Damian didn’t want to revisit, and slowly, he undergoes a change that Alex doesn’t fail to notice. Alex notices an isolated estate near their manor, which Damian reveals to be Bridgewood, the boarding school he used to attend—and appears uncomfortable about sharing details regarding it. On another occasion, Damian is greeted by an elderly lady, Mrs. Ferguson, at the market, but he refuses to recognize her. The next day, the old lady goes missing, and upon being questioned by the police, Damian straight-up lies about ever seeing her—much to Alex’s surprise. A group of vagabond hunters appears on the manor’s grounds, who get into a conflict with Alex and Damian. Alex also finds out that Damian is affected by a strange case of somnambulism, as he wakes up at night to venture outside, remembering traumatic events of his past—but continues to deny it when Alex questions him about it. The more he tries to keep secrets from Alex, the more she becomes curious about them. On one occasion, she gets the chance to meet with Mrs. Miller, who appears to still believe that her daughter, Elizabeth, is alive.
One night, Alex decides to follow a sleepwalking Damian and arrives at Bridgewood, where she finds out one of the hunters, Derek, who isn’t doing too well mentally, is present there. As Alex tries to hide, to her absolute horror, she finds Mrs. Ferguson’s corpse in one of the rooms, and it is later revealed that she used to work there years ago. Alex becomes extremely suspicious about Damian’s involvement in the killing, after his denial has now turned into full-blown gaslighting as he tries to convince Alex that all the events she has witnessed are frightful fancies of her mind. After learning that Alex is trying to help him by speaking with her psychiatrist about his sleepwalking issues, Damian goes so far as to pin it on her past issues with alcoholism, despite knowing she has remained sober for the last couple of years. Alex reveals the news of her pregnancy to Damian, but he seems to be more driven to cover his skin than to bother about that. In a vain attempt to show that he has manned up, Damian eats meat and gets sick as a result. Alex contacts local physician Dr. Kelly, whom Damian recognizes all of a sudden, and it is hinted that the duo share a history—which doesn’t escape Alex’s notice.
What Happened To Damian In Bridgewood?
As Alex goes to a local drugstore to buy meds for Damian, she learns from the pharmacist that Bridgewood was not a boarding school to begin with; it was a juvenile correctional facility that gained notoriety for the malicious experiments conducted on young kids by its authorities. Alex looks up the place on the internet and finds out Dr. Kelly had conducted genetic experiments on the kids imprisoned at Bridgewood, causing the deaths of several of them in the process—which eventually resulted in governmental intervention to shut down the place for good.
Alex realizes the truth that Damian’s sordid experiences in Bridgewood might have scrambled his mind into such a miserable state, but she still doesn’t know the reason behind him getting admitted to that heinous institution. To protect Damian, Alex ties him to his bed and goes to confront Dr. Kelly, a vile person to the core who doesn’t seem to feel any sense of guilt for his past actions at all. Instead, he justifies the genetic experimentations conducted on the kids of Bridgewood as a part of the process of exterminating the evil inside them—which the crazed doctor considered to be a genetic defect. Alex learns that Mrs. Miller pulled all the strings to have Damian admitted at Bridgewood, and from his case file, Alex gets to know that a young Damian had allegedly killed his sister, Elizabeth, by shooting her to death.
Damian’s Tragic Truth
Alex returns to the manor, only to find out that Damian has escaped by untying himself, and she gets confronted by one of the hunters, who blames her for informing his buddy Derek’s presence in the Bridgewood. He reveals that, like Damian, Derek too was admitted to Bridgewood, which explains the condition of his mental faculties at present. Anyway, before the hunter terrorizes Alex any further, Damian shoots him to death and takes Alex inside the manor by holding her captive. A captive Alex gets horrified seeing Damian torturing Dr. Kelly to death as a bloody act of revenge for his past actions.
Alex tries to escape, only to get caught once again, and sees that Damian has brought his mother, Mrs. Miller, from the hospital so he can have a final conversation with her. From Damian’s confession, Alex realizes that Damian was a victim of the superstitious beliefs of his mother—and in a sense, what happened to him was nothing short of tragic. In a desperate attempt to prove himself to be the conventional manly figure, Damian tried his hand at hunting and accidentally shot his sister to death. Mrs. Miller was cruel enough to blame the incident on her young son and subjected him to extreme torture by sending him to Bridgewood. Mrs. Miller believed that, in accordance with the Miller family curse, like Maive, she too ended up with the evil child—in this case, Damian, who took her daughter, Elizabeth, away from her. But in reality, it was Mrs. Miller and Dr. Kelly who put the evil inside an innocent child, subjecting him to a hellish experience.
In The Nightman’s ending, Damian ends up killing his own mother, and Alex once again tries her desperate best to flee. Damian chases after her, and after cornering Alex near the dilapidated castle tower, he injures her by shooting her in the shoulder. Gathering up what’s remaining of her strength, Alex bashes Damian’s skull to protect herself. Perhaps finally recognizing what a monster he has turned out to be, Damian lets go of his mad pursuit and falls from the castle tower to his death. Damian would have lived a better life had he not returned to the manor, which reawakened the agonizing memories he tried to keep buried for so long. Years later, Alex is seen raising her and Damian’s son, Simon, all on her own, and it seems she has finally found much-needed peace and balance in her life. However, as the movie comes to an end, Alex finds Simon has gotten out of his bed in the middle of the night and is staring at something intently while sitting on a swing.
The Nightman’s ending hints that Alex’s misery hasn’t ended just yet, as there is a chance that the Miller family curse, or Damian’s mental disorder—whatever you might want to call it—has passed down to Simon as well.
