Goodnight

Diane Michelle's film is a taut little bedtime story, one whose haunting qualities will persist after the tension it engenders and the jumpier scares it indulges in have faded.

Old-fashioned in appearance - despite the presence of a smartphone with key-tones turned on (a modern horror) - it appears in a wider not quite sure when. A music box (pay close attention to the message on the side) and fairy lights don't detract from the look created by a 4x3ish frame with rounded corners, light that's gentle like night and night-lights, DoP Benjamin Webber creating something that feels solid and dreamy. Like the score by Joseph Trapanese, it contributes to a soft off-ness, a bit of off-kilter. Not as built upon angles as Puppet Master with which it screened at Glasgow's 2019 Film Festival as part of We Are The Weirdos, it nonetheless skews in a particular direction. The unease really builds with the wallpaper of the title screen, the scratching out of its name indicative in a way that will bear fruit later.

"Did you hear that?" we're asked, and we should be listening out. Not one to watch with the door open, nor with the light off, but one to look for.

Goodnight screened at the 2019 Glasgow Film Festival as part of the Final Girls programme.