Night Watch

Went and saw Night Watch at the Metreon last night. Night Watch is a Russian horror/fantasy film set in modern Moscow. Two competing sets of Others (vampires? lycanthropes? witches and warlocks?) watch over each other in a tense truce, with humanity living in the middle. The one side serves Light, the other side serves Dark, and human beings must decide for themselves which way to go.

And somehow, the movie works. Oh, sure, there are some moments that don't work, and there's a certain eagerness to impress with cool, but ultimately, the world is rich enough to gloss over these minor failings. The real star of the show, however, is whoever did the subtitles, which fade in and out, float away like blood in water, disappear behind objects in the film, and just enhance the film overall; bloody well done!

The movie itself is not really that scary, but it sure as hell is creepy, and it makes for excellent dream fodder. And for you gamers out there, there's plenty of game mechanic to discuss afterwards.

Night Watch (trailer) is supposed to be the first of three movies. If the other two are anywhere near as good as this one, we're really in for a treat.