“Music is a blood sport,” a piano tutor warns in Nocturne. He can say that again. This exquisitely unsettling music-school horror from newcomer Zu Quirke takes that observation to violent extremes, creating a symphony of tension out of one student’s struggle for perfection, at an academy where anything less means failure. The nerve-shredding highlight of Amazon’s Welcome To The Blumhouse anthology, the film tells the tale of Juliet, played by a sensational Sydney Sweeney, whose competitive relationship with her twin sister drives her to uncover the notebook of a fellow student recently driven to suicide. Inside are demonic drawings that seem to push her towards school success, but also to a dangerous brink. It’s a punishing crescendo of terror that announces Quirke as a promising new conductor of fear.
Zu Quirke keeps her characters grounded and her imagery unforgettable.
Carmen Cabana’s cinematography is arresting and the movie’s use of sound is electrifying as Juliet begins her descent, in this Black Swan-esque portrait of the sacrifice that great art demands. There are directorial flourishes reminiscent of the Satanic seduction in Ari Aster’s Hereditary, too, as the film asks: how far would you go for greatness? The Faustian bargain that Juliet strikes in Nocturne is compelling because it’s convincing: Sweeney, previously seen in The Handmaid’s Tale and Sharp Objects, excels in finding subtle expressions and burning looks that silently communicate her jealousy and frustration towards her sister and situation.
The film never falls into pantomime: Vivian may have the academic and romantic success that eludes Juliet, but she’s not the broad-strokes mean girl she might have been portrayed as. Instead, Quirke keeps her characters grounded and her imagery unforgettable: Nocturne’s shocking final images rival those that conclude Rose Glass’ Saint Maud (another study of a young woman in thrall to dark forces) in their eerie beauty. It’s not the scariest thrill-ride you’ll go on this Halloween, but its dark beauty can’t be ignored.
