Nyctophobia

This film will not hold your hand. It won't give you jump scares, tidy resolutions, or an easy sense of closure. Instead, it invites you into a quiet, often uncomfortable space - the kind that mirrors the disorienting experience of drifting in and out of sleep while carrying the weight of anxiety or trauma.

It's a risky approach, and for some, it may feel too abstract or slow. But to dismiss it as meaningless because it doesn't follow a conventional narrative does a disservice not only to the filmmaker - but to the idea of film as a vessel for emotional truth.

The visuals are haunting: black-and-white frames punctuated by sudden washes of color, like emotional memories bleeding into the subconscious. The pacing may be meditative, even glacial at times, but that slowness isn't empty - it's evocative. The repetition mirrors the looping thoughts of insomnia, the stagnation of emotional paralysis. These choices feel intentional, not careless.

What truly carries the film, though, is its mood. The sound design is immersive and organic, drawing you into the liminal space between dread and surrender. The long silences, the distorted lullabies, the feeling that time has stretched and bent - it's all in service of a raw, vulnerable experience that many mainstream films would never dare to explore.

Still, this is not a film for everyone. Its dreamlike structure and lack of traditional progression may alienate some viewers, and there are moments where even the emotionally invested may crave a bit more variation or narrative shape. But for those willing to meet it on its terms, it offers a strange and strangely beautiful form of catharsis.

It may not be perfect - but it's brave, deeply felt, and unlike anything else I've seen this year.

Nyctophobia looks stunning but doesn't have much narrative outside of the protagonist's struggle to break free from her nightmares and anxiety. By nature, experimental filmmaking doesn't require a narrative, but 90 minutes is quite a long time to not have a plot or character fleshed out beyond suffering from nyctophobia; casual viewers might find their attention waning after the first 30 minutes. Having said that, as an informative art piece, Nyctophobia succeeds at both representing symptoms of the disorder beyond just a fear of the dark and the general surreal nature of dreams and nightmares. The woman struggling to sleep peacefully, credited as Liz (Olivia Clari Nice), is dropped into many strange scenarios without much of a blink, rolling along with the dream "logic" even though it always roughly ends with masked figures blocking her path and even causing her harm. There's a recognizable pattern to her behavior and her dreams; there's even a sequence where she's taking a school exam, a common anxiety dream even for people without an anxiety disorder. All of this strangeness is sold through not only Nice's excellent physicality (there isn't much dialogue, so her body language takes center stage) but also through the overall look and sound of the film. The bursts of color throughout the otherwise black-and-white film are carefully measured, never feeling like too much, and the sound design is hypnotic, especially towards the end when Liz's sleep becomes more restful. While I do think it might have worked better as either a much shorter film or as the same length but with a more realized character, Nyctophobia is still a visually and aurally arresting piece for those into more arthouse films.

Nyctophobia, in scientific terms, is a crippling fear of the dark and what it might be hiding. People with this condition have extreme anxiety when they're in the dark or think about darkness. Such people also have difficulty getting sleep and thus, their lives are in a perpetual state of fear and unease.

Written and directed by Seayoon Jeong, Nyctophobia is a 2024 horror feature that stars Olivia Clari Nice, Sophia Biscotti and David Rannan Ellner. The film is a story of a young woman Liz who struggles with nyctophobia. Tired, anxious and unable to sleep, Liz will find her worst fears realized as her condition slowly takes a turn for the worse. She desperately tries to fall asleep by entering her inner world where she can access her happy childhood memories. However, she ultimately becomes trapped in her lucid dream world and encounters her worst nightmare.

I never expected Nyctophobia to be as hard hitting as it turned out to be. Anchored by fantastic makeup and creature design, the film is genuinely haunting. I can only imagine how people with such a disorder manage to get sleep but what Nyctophobia does is that it manages to apprise general audiences that such a condition indeed exists and it is nothing short of hell.

Olivia Clari Nice as Liz Whitman is a revelation. Not only does her measured performance anchor the film, Whitman's journey of survival finds us rooting for her wholeheartedly. On the other hand, there are equally great turns by the bad guys. From the clown cops to the eerie dancing ladies, all monsters are terrifying and disturbing.

The 90 minute feature whizzes by in a flash, courtesy of brisk editing that keeps us on our toes. Jeong knows how to craft a potent horror thriller as the pacing switches back and forth allowing the audience to have a false sense of comfort before plunging them into chaos once again. Technically, the film manages to knock it out of the park. The black and white cinematography works well to illustrate the visual aspect of the fear. However, what works best is how color frequently manages to break through this monotonous palette. Each such instance signifies something important and this is one of the few visual tools that Jeong employs to make her story that much more engaging.

Thus, Seayoon Jeong's Nyctophobia is a potent film, one that successfully immortalizes a particular fear that is all too real. With haunting visuals and great performances, this one is a winner. Five out of five stars from me.

Nyctophobia offers a visually intense and emotionally charged look into the restless mind. Its stark black-and-white style, punctuated by sudden flashes of color, creates a dreamlike world shaped by fear and unease. While it occasionally drags with repeated imagery, the film's atmosphere and bold direction hold attention. It's less about telling a story and more about capturing a feeling-unsettling, anxious, and strangely beautiful. Though uneven at times, it leaves a lasting impression as a raw, artistic exploration of sleeplessness, anxiety, and the haunting cycle of intrusive, obsessive thoughts.

Sometimes, all you really need is a good cup of tea, a nice evening with friends, and a film like this. Watching Nyctophobia during a gathering honestly blew me away. It's been a long time since I've seen something this intense, this well-made, and this haunting.

I haven't felt fear like this in a movie for a while-but now I have. And even though it scared me, I couldn't stop watching. That's the kind of power this film holds. The way it shows fear-not just as something creepy or loud, but as something that slowly creeps inside you-is just brilliant. If someone really wants to understand fear, this is the movie they should watch.

The scary dialogue hit hard, adding to the mood perfectly. And the black and white visuals gave the film a unique and chilling feel that made everything stand out. It wasn't just horror for the sake of it-it was horror that meant something.

You can tell the people behind this film put a lot of care and hard work into it. The result is something rare and powerful. It doesn't need to be full of big effects or hype-it just knows how to leave a mark.

I would 100% recommend this film. It will give you chills. It will scare you. And just like me, you might find yourself wanting to watch it again-even if you're a little too scared,!