The Night is Young – review

Director: Patrick Rea

Release date: 2025

Contains spoilers

Patrick Rae, who was behind the interesting indie werewolf film “I am Lisa”, turns his attention to vampires and we are in the world of influencers – or content creators as main character Nora (Sarah McGuire) describes herself. This is an interesting world to dip into and I look at it, in part, in my chapter They Have Changed Their Faces, part of the volume Toxic Nostalgia on Screen.

hunter's base

After an intertitle telling us we are in Kansas, we see a hooded woman at a map, vampire hunting gear and the hunters going out on the prowl. This is being filmed by another (unnamed) content creator and late in the film we discover he found the hunters on Reddit. However, after that, the film moves back several hours to Nora and her re-doing an intro that explains why she hasn’t done much content recently.

Jake and Nora

Her content is filmed by her brother, Jake (Jake Jackson), and consists of her going on dates and looking for love, under the title Nora’s Infinite Gaylist. Nora is a lesbian and we see some of the latest dates, one with Bianca (Nicole Hall) who, it turns out, is married to a man (who then turns up on the date), another where the date suggests moving in (on the first date) and then about one that went well and they dated for two weeks until she ghosted Nora. She is due to go out on another date.

meeting

She gets to the bar, but her date is not there (we notice that another woman at the bar, Amelia (Valeri Bates), keeps looking over to her). Eventually they decide that Nora has been stood up, but she is approached by Amelia, who offers to buy her a drink. They hit it off. Eventually Amelia is walking Nora to her car when a man grabs Nora intent on mugging her (the fact that this is being filmed by Jake begs a question around criminals, content creators and constant filming, which isn’t for here but struck me as I watched). Amelia growls, Nora is thrown against a door and knocked out and Amelia bears fangs and attacks the mugger.

blood at mouth

In a strange room, Nora comes round. Jake says they were brought there by Amelia and shows Nora the footage. They move to leave the apartment and find a box with several passports and some photos including an old one of a woman who looks like Nora (later we discover she was Amelia’s maker, there isn’t any discussion on reincarnation and the film relies on the viewer knowing the trope). They continue to leave but Amelia is in front of the door, her mouth still bloodstained. She says she isn’t going to hurt them and they talk for a while but then Amelia senses the hunters (they found her bag, left on the scene) and they leave but Amelia is injured by a holy water projectile…

staked vampire

The rest of the film follows them through the night. The hunters are specifically after Amelia as she is an ancestor of theirs (why, beyond this, is never really communicated) and this is the issue with the film. The narrative is often shorthanded. Why would a pair of vampires betray her? Because the hunters have promised them amnesty for cooperation – we get that much but the emotional impact is low as the connection between them and Amelia is not explored. Why Jake and Nora do not just walk away is not explored. This doesn’t make it bad (and is kind of necessary due to the found footage style) but stops a deeper exploration by the viewer and makes it susceptible to notwithstanding study. As a single, found footage style watch, its ok. It will probably not withstand multiple watches. 5 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.