Nightborn Trailer Teases a Chilling Folk Horror Nightmare From the Director of Hatching

Seidi Haarla stars as a mother convinced something is terribly wrong with her newborn in Hanna Bergholm’s Nightborn.

Hanna Bergholm’s Nightborn Unleashes Maternal Terror in New Trailer Ahead of Fantasia Premiere and Shudder Debut

A new trailer has arrived for Nightborn, the latest horror feature from Hatching director Hanna Bergholm, and it looks poised to deliver one of the year’s most unsettling tales of motherhood, paranoia, and folklore-fueled dread.

Following the film’s initial announcement earlier last week, audiences now have their first extended look at the haunting nightmare awaiting viewers when Nightborn makes its North American Premiere at the Fantasia International Film Festival before streaming exclusively on Shudder beginning July 31.

The film follows Saga (Seidi Haarla, Compartment No. 6) and her British husband Jon (Rupert Grint, Knock at the Cabin) as they move into the remote Finnish home where Saga spent much of her childhood. Hoping to build the perfect family, the couple’s dream quickly begins to unravel after the birth of their son.

Despite reassurances from family members and those around her, Saga becomes convinced that something is terribly wrong with the baby. As tensions rise and her marriage begins to fracture, Jon struggles to understand his wife’s growing fears. But Saga believes a horrifying truth lurks beneath the surface, one that no one else is willing to acknowledge.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lBvgrGPnf2w

The newly released trailer leans heavily into the film’s isolated forest setting, creating an atmosphere thick with unease and mounting psychological tension. Between disturbing glimpses of the newborn, fractured family relationships, and imagery rooted in Nordic folklore, Nightborn appears to blend folk horror and maternal terror into a deeply unsettling experience.

Bergholm earned international acclaim with Hatching, a film celebrated for combining emotional storytelling with body horror and dark fairy-tale imagery. Based on the footage shown in the trailer, Nightborn appears to continue exploring themes of motherhood, transformation, and unconditional love through a far darker lens.

Written by Ilja Rautsi and Hanna Bergholm, the film also stars Pamela Tola, Pirkko Saisio, Rebecca Lacey, John Thomson, and Silvia Saloranta.

Shudder describes Nightborn as a visceral and terrifying dark fable about motherhood and unconditional maternal love, and the trailer certainly suggests a film willing to push those themes into deeply uncomfortable territory.

Fans of atmospheric folk horror, psychological terror, and unsettling family dramas will want to keep this one firmly on their radar.

Check out the new trailer and poster below, and let us know your thoughts. Does Nightborn have the makings of the next great modern folk-horror nightmare?

Nightborn premieres at Fantasia before making its exclusive streaming debut on Shudder on July 31, 2026.