Film Review: Night Nurse: A Bizarre Look at a Young Nurse’s Bond with a Deranged Man [Sundance 2026]

Night Nurse Review

Night Nurse (2026) Film Review from the 49th Annual Sundance Film Festival, a movie written and directed by Georgia Bernstein and starring Cemre Paksoy, Bruce McKenzie, Mimi Rogers, Eleonore Hendricks, Colleen Rose Trundy, Karin Anglin, Sandy Gulliver, Steve McDonagh, Bernard Rice, Charles Stransky and Vincent Teninty.

Filmmaker Georgia Bernstein’s deranged, but entertaining, new film, Night Nurse, offers a glimpse inside a con artist’s world with the focus on those he enlists to be a part of it. Bruce McKenzie stars in the movie as an older man, Douglas, who has been put up in a retirement home where his well-being is tended to by a few different nurses. As the movie opens, a new nurse, Eleni (Cemre Paksoy), comes on board and sees Douglas in a pool being given the royal treatment, so to say. Little does Eleni know she will become immersed in his twisted mind games as the movie progresses.

Mimi Rogers serves as the nurses’ supervisor, Doctor Mann, who seems to have a feel for what kind of patient Douglas is, but also becomes involved in some wicked schemes that manifest themselves in curious ways. As the movie occasionally takes place outside the retirement home, we see Eleni and Douglas (among others) looking for victims to prey on with their scheme to make substantial money the “easy” way. Well, it seems like an easy way, but by the time the movie gets to its unusual climax, the nurses and Eleni, in particular, ultimately become so involved with the scams that it’s hard to know where reality begins and ends as intense stories are spun for Douglas’s unique profiteering schemes.

This film opens with talking over a shot of a long phone cord. The spiel that Douglas has his nurses dish out is a story where the girl calling the victim tells the person on the other end of the phone that she is that person’s granddaughter and needs money to avoid going to jail. Douglas will then get on the phone and pretend to be the girl’s lawyer and remind the person that if the monies are paid, all the crimes the granddaughter seemingly committed will be dismissed. It’s a clever little scam and yields a considerable amount of cash. The nurses lay beside Douglas and revel in their successes.

Eleni becomes hot and cold with Douglas as she tells him he’s too old at one point but still tries to please him sexually in order to maintain a solid, if improper, relationship. Douglas does’t seem to be looking for sex and things get complicated when his insurance is jeopardized and his time at the retirement home may have a ticking clock. This film blurs the lines between reality and fiction as the cult of nurses enjoys the company of its fearless leader, Douglas. Eleni is a sweet nurse at first, but don’t cross her, or else, maybe she won’t be so kind. You never know.

This film maintains a lot of interest until it reaches its ending where the tables are turned and any number of scenarios could be occurring. This picture leaves many questions open for debate and the audience will enjoy pondering some of those questions regarding the validity of Eleni’s loyalty to Douglas as well as the nature of her obsession with Douglas. Bernstein doesn’t miss a trick and some have compared her work to David Cronenberg’s Crash. While there are cult-like aspects of that film here, Night Nurse doesn’t have that film’s delicate complexity, but that doesn’t mean the new movie won’t keep you guessing all the way until the very last shot.

Bruce McKenzie does a fine job as the cult leader who is charismatic and energetic even though he may be losing his mind if one examines his motivations and their consequences. The scenes between Douglas and Paksoy’s Eleni are like a well-conducted opus, filled with intensity you could cut with a knife and complicated passion. Paksoy keeps the viewer riveted as she seems to be losing her sanity as well as she speaks sweetly to Douglas and becomes so deeply involved with her role in the scams that she starts becoming obsessed as she gives a man on the other end of the phone a virtual heart attack at one wild point in the film.

Mimi Rogers all but steals the show whenever she’s on screen and it’s great to see her working again in a role as the supervisor who seems to know much more than she lets her fellow nurses on to. Rogers chews scenery and it’s simply the best role the actress has had in years.

Cemre Paksoy is to be credited for bringing much intensity to a role that could have been a throw-away role in a less gifted actress’s hands. Paksoy looks and acts the part and the audience is likely to get inside her mind as she plays the victim and the attacker at different intervals throughout the film’s layered screenplay.

If nothing else, Night Nurse puts Georgia Bernstein on the map as a filmmaker to look out for. If one likes scary movies with a midnight popcorn movie feel, this may be something one would want to throw on late at night as a scary example of the twisted nature of some professionals in the world who manipulate others in their free time. Stories like this could happen in some bizarre, twisted way and that fact makes the film that much more compelling under closer analysis.

Rating: 7/10

Leave your thoughts on this Night Nurse review and the film below in the comments section. Readers seeking to support this type of content can visit our Patreon Page and become one of FilmBook‘s patrons.

Readers seeking more Sundance Film Festival news can visit our Sundance Film Festival Page, our Film Festival Page, and our Film Festival Facebook Page. Readers seeking more film reviews can visit our Movie Review Page, our Movie Review Twitter Page, and our Movie Review Facebook Page.

Want up-to-the-minute notifications? FilmBook staff members publish articles by Email, Mobile App, Google News, Apple News, Feedly, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Tumblr, Pinterest, Reddit, Telegram, Mastodon, Flipboard, Bluesky, and Threads.