Girl in the Night Review | Fantastic Fest 2026
FANTASTIC FEST 2026 REVIEW
‘Girl in the Night’ Review: Deadpan Humor and Vigilante Justice Collide in a Dark Slovenian Oddity
One of the things I appreciate most about Fantastic Fest is walking into a movie without knowing exactly what kind of experience I’m about to have. Girl in the Night was certainly one of those films.
The Slovenian feature follows Rok (Urban Kuntaric), a young man working the late shift at a convenience store who also has a habit of stealing. His strange but relatively uneventful existence changes when a mysterious young woman (Lara Wolf) appears at the store looking as though she has just been in an accident.
What initially feels like an awkward encounter gradually develops into something considerably stranger.
Rok eventually discovers that this woman is on a mission of her own, carrying out a form of vigilante justice against people who have wronged her and others. From there, Girl in the Night begins moving between dark comedy, thriller and an unconventional relationship story while maintaining an intentionally deadpan tone from beginning to end.
And when I say deadpan, I mean the movie commits to it.
The performances are deliberately restrained, particularly in the interactions between Rok, the mysterious young woman and Rok’s roommate and lover. Conversations can become uncomfortable simply because nobody seems interested in reacting the way we expect characters in a movie to react.
That awkwardness is a huge part of the film’s personality.
The convenience store is also an excellent setting for this type of story. Its harsh nighttime lighting and strange collection of people passing through create a small universe where almost anything feels possible. The visual composition throughout the film reinforces that atmosphere, giving the movie a distinctive identity even during its quieter moments.
There were times when I questioned exactly where the story was taking me.
The film does have a destination, but not every scene feels equally necessary in getting there. There are moments where I found myself wondering what a particular interaction was contributing to the larger narrative.
But Girl in the Night isn’t entirely driven by plot.
It is equally interested in its characters, their awkwardness and the absurdity surrounding them. Once I settled into that rhythm, the movie became much easier to appreciate on its own terms.
The vigilante sequences are where the pacing really comes alive. Whenever that side of the young woman’s life moves to the foreground, the film gains another level of energy. Those moments are among the most engaging in the movie because they interrupt the otherwise restrained atmosphere without abandoning the strange tone surrounding everything else.
There is also an unconventional love story developing underneath all of this.
Rok and the young woman are outsiders in different ways, and their connection grows out of circumstances that would make absolutely no sense in a more traditional romantic story. Here, however, their awkwardness becomes part of what draws them together.
That aspect reminded me of the weirdo outsider movies I grew up watching in the 1980s and ‘90s. Films like Lucas and The Boy Who Could Fly were obviously very different tonally, but they understood something about characters who don’t comfortably fit into the world around them.
Girl in the Night takes that type of outsider energy and sends it somewhere much darker.
There is something interesting about watching people who might be dismissed as strange, awkward or disconnected become the center of their own story. The movie gives them space to exist without constantly trying to normalize them for the audience.
Eventually, the relationship between these characters begins pushing everything toward a much more chaotic conclusion.
The cast deserves a lot of credit for maintaining the film’s unusual tone. Deadpan comedy is difficult because pushing a performance even slightly too far can destroy the joke. Everyone here appears to understand exactly what kind of movie they’re making.
That also means Girl in the Night won’t be for everyone.
If you struggle with sustained deadpan performances or need a narrative that is constantly driving forward, there are stretches that may test your patience. I occasionally felt that myself.
But there is enough personality here to keep the movie interesting.
Between the convenience-store setting, the vigilante violence, the awkward relationships and the increasingly strange romance, Girl in the Night becomes the kind of oddity that makes sense at Fantastic Fest.
It isn’t necessarily reinventing the dark comedy or vigilante thriller. Instead, it takes familiar pieces and filters them through a distinctly awkward collection of characters who seem perfectly comfortable making the audience uncomfortable.
And I’m all here for that.
Girl in the Night also picked up an award during Fantastic Fest 2026, and it’s easy to understand why the film stood out within a festival filled with much louder genre movies. Its personality comes from restraint rather than spectacle.
It is weird, dark, funny and sometimes deliberately frustrating.
But it is never boringly normal.
3 out of 5
Reviewed as part of Horror Movies Uncut's Fantastic Fest 2026 coverage in Austin, Texas.
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