Simon Bidwell 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.

guybrindle 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

jamieson2653 This was a really enjoyable psychological thriller. A nice homage to to those great suspense films of the 1930s and 1940s.The film has a very deliberate pace and setup, which I can see wouldn't be to everyone's taste. This isn't a film for people with short attention spans. However, I found it really gripping from beginning to end.Even though the film starts quietly, there is a real sense of dread right from the opening. There's never any doubt that bad things are going to start happening. It's just a case of when.The middle section is all about scares, and there's plenty of them. The girls around me had their heads in their hands more often than not...The ending was a real surprise. Perhaps not entirely believable, but I certainly didn't see it coming. And judging by the screams around me, neither did many others.The acting, particularly by the two nurses, Tania Nolan and Rosella Hart, was excellent. They have by far the majority of screen time together and really play off each other well.This was a really enjoyable film. It's clear that a great deal of care, craft and talent went into it, and it's a welcome addition to New Zealand's film titles.

rex0175 This film was a really pleasant surprise.An edgy, scary little thriller that left me a lot more scared than heaps of other horrors I've seen. It's definitely the best NZ film I've seen in a long time.Set in 1930s New Zealand, it starts out as quite a simple period drama about two nurses looking after a patient at his country home. But it becomes more dark and scary as it goes along, when we begin to realise that someone may be playing some very nasty psychological games on them.My only small criticism is that the film did take a while to get going. But once the scares start, they really keep on coming!! Definitely worth a look if you like getting the chills!