The fan-favorite creepypasta subgenre of ‘Security Guard in a Situation’ gets a new entry in its cinematic canon with Josh Lobo’s Night After Night, with the cerebral psychological horror-thriller coming off a successful festival run that includes showings at Chattanooga Film Festival and London’s Tubi FrightFest.
The latest from the I Trapped the Devil director stars Hacks’ Johnny Sibilly and Perish’s Scott Poythree as Willis and Andy, two overnight security guards at a private university, whose grip on reality begins to unravel after the appearance of a mute, shape-shifting figure who returns each night without explanation.
If that’s as far as you get with your understanding of the plot, fear not: Night After Night is a sumptuous saga of surrealism in which Lobo has, thankfully, little interest in holding the audience’s hand; which is very refreshing in our current era of second screen-adjusted exposition dump cinema. Themes of mundanity of the workplace grind are present, as the title suggests, but a more profound reading of the film may centre on ideas of defective communication, particularly between men, in the modern age. Andy’s most intimate conversations take place with a faceless woman who speaks to him through cheap motel walls, while Willis’ boyfriend would be better off having a conversation with one of those walls. Both men have very different reactions to their nude night-time visitor, who seems to serve as a liminal mirror into the psyche.
J-horror influences on Night After Night are clear from the Kiyoshi Kurosawa-esque weaponizing of negative space, the harsh brutalist backdrop of academia feeling much akin to the Pulse director’s most recent horror nightmare, Chime. Lobo and cinematographer Bryce Holden both have the paranoid eye of a director from the 1970s, while Simon Waskow, frequent collaborator with director Tilman Singer, provides a pulsing, powerful score that imbues Night After Night with as much atmosphere as Singer’s Cuckoo and Luz. In what is quickly becoming a hallmark of Lobo’s, Night After Night revels in aesthetic experimentation, creating a hypnotic feast for the senses even when the blood starts spewing.
Those who like their horror clear cut will undoubtedly feel frustration with Night After Night and its refusal to deliver on objectivity, but fans of David Lynch, Panos Cosmatos, and the existential nightmares of this year’s Backrooms and It Ends will want to spend another night in these phantasmagorial shadows.
Night After Night had its UK Premiere at FrightFest 2026 on Friday, August 28
