phancy.com - horror reviews - MOH 2020

Nocturne



IMDb Info

Release Year: 2020
Runtime: 1h 30min
Country: USA
Language: English
Genre Tags: Horror, Mystery, Thriller
Plot Summary: An incredibly gifted pianist makes a Faustian bargain to overtake her older sister at a prestigious institution for classical musicians.

Poster - Title Card


phancy.com rating:

phancy.com notes: The Black Swan of music school. The psychological toll of an impossible drive for perfection and greatness. Also, spooky sheet music?


Outside Reviews:

Nick Allen
3.5 out of 4 stars - rogerebert.com

Zu Quirke's Nocturne, released today in the "Welcome to the Blumhouse" anthology, echoes one of producer Jason Blum's scariest but more unconventional projects - Damien Chazelle's jazz thriller Whiplash, the movie that first put Blumhouse on the awards circuit. This story, about a classical pianist's feverish pursuit for greatness, stands on its own with its more direct approach to horror, but it recalls the excitement of getting sucked into Whiplash and its musical approach to psychological terror. Nocturne isn't just the best entry in the "Welcome to the Blumhouse" series, it's one of the best Blumhouse movies in years.


A.A. Dowd
Grade: B - Don't expect many scares from the first four movies in Amazon's Welcome To The Blumhouse series

Flashes of the macabre, including a jump-scare appearance by a fellow student who committed suicide under the same pressure the heroine endures, are creepy enough and well-executed. But the movie almost doesn't need them. It's plenty compelling as a portrait of mounting stress, anchored by a character who's at once relatable and hard to entirely root for in her bitter, competitive drive, which may be slightly at odds with her less-than-prodigious talent at the ivory. Nocturne, like its brittle protagonist, is good enough at what it does to make you wish it were a little better. (The ending, for one, is entirely predictable, though props to Quirke for a suggestively harsh final image.) But this also the only Welcome To The Blumhouse selection so far that could easily stand on its lonesome, drawing an audience without the misleading branding. Those determined to watch all four, though, should definitely save it for last, like the anchor leg of a relay team carrying some seriously dead weight.