‘Nite Nite’ (2017) – What’s Hiding In YOUR Closet?

It’s getting late, and your babysitter is trying to get you to go to bed. She has stuff to do, like raid your fridge and talk about boys on your parent’s cordless phone. She certainly doesn’t have time to play your Monster in the Closet games. She might want to rethink that…

Let me introduce you to Nite Nite, a short horror film written, directed and produced by Chad Meisenheimer (Inanimate Love 2008). In less than four minutes, Meisenheimer was able to introduce and justly portrayed the two main characters, a boy (Brady Bond: MILFriend TV series) and his babysitter (Tommie Vegas: Party Night 2017). He was able to show the back-and-forth all sitters of children recognize when they’re trying to get their charge to go to sleep. Nite Nite was executively produced by Jonathan Robinette with Niklas Berggren (Mr. Elevator 2016) in charge of the camerawork. Debuting composer Evan Oxford created the score for the film.

Synopsis:

A 7 year old believes a monster is living in his closet but nobody believes him.

It’s 1985, a great year for horror movies. A young boy huddles in his bed, trying to convince his babysitter to scrutinize all of the usual places for monsters. As she chats with her friend (Sarah Rhoades: Victorious TV series) on the family cordless phone, the babysitter grudgingly agrees to look in the same hiding places that the boy’s dad usually checks. Wait… what was that in the closet?

Nite Nite is a spooky yet predictable short that acts out the childhood fear of a monster hiding in the shadows of a child’s bedroom. The relationship between the babysitter and the boy was naturally believable. I could see that she cared for the kid but was clearly annoyed that he was wasting her precious phone time. The boy was terrified of what was hiding in his room. He knew what he would see when the lights went off, and he made sure to keep his hands and feet safely under the sheets at all times. If he had had to shut his own light off, I’m sure he would have launched himself across the floor like Tad in Cujo. Nite Nite is a well-rounded short that would work well in an anthology of urban legends or childhood fears.

Nite Nite will be screening at the Fake Flesh Film Fest in Canada Oct 27th – 31st. If you’re planning to attend, be sure to check it out!