Movies

Eerie ‘Borgman’ is what nightmares are made of

A sickening horror parable disguised as a comedy of mores, the Netherlands’ “Borgman” is a rarity: a genuinely shocking, upsetting movie.

Jan Bijovet plays the title character, a harmless-seeming weirdo living in the woods when, at the outset, men come to kill him. One of these men is a priest. Borgman, on the run, awakens a couple of friends, who are lying in shallow graves like vampires, then manages to find shelter with a well-heeled family in which a kindly housewife (Hadewych Minis) supplies him with bed and board without telling her husband there’s a vagrant in the house.

Writer-director Alex Van Warmerdam disguises his hand for a long time, and even by the end it isn’t clear what message we’re meant to take away. But Borgman’s viral evil guarantees “Borgman” will infest a lot of nightmares.