A super low-budget but sharp thriller released last year, “Night Sweats” seems prescient in its depiction of people stalking around the streets of New York City in face masks, yellow hazmat suits and other PPE – a once-obscure phrase that most people now instantly recognize as “personal protection equipment.”
This is a bit of a mashup of mystery, horror, sci-fi and whodunit genres from writer/director Andrew Lyman-Clarke, making his second feature behind the camera. It’s about a mysterious disease spreading the city through unknown means. The tension gradually ramps up as we track down the source, with a young Everyman as our protagonist/investigator.
Soon enough, he catches the ailment himself, so it becomes a race against time.
Kyle DeSpiegler plays Yuri, a recent transplant to the Big Apple from rural Idaho. He’s been lured here by his lifelong friend, Jake (John Francomacaro), a fellow skateboarder and video aficionado. They share a tiny post-college apartment of highly questionable hygiene, work low-paying McJobs and party with fellow Gen Zers.
Jake introduces Yuri to Mary Kate (Mary Elaine Ramsey), a gorgeous waitress he met through work, which involves interviewing people who have experienced some kind of injury or trauma. She and Yuri begin the first steps of a casual romantic dance.
Then Jake suddenly becomes very ill, shaking and vomiting on the floor of their apartment -- not to mention the titular beads. After Jake is carted away, Yuri gets some scary information from Samantha (Allison Mackie), a jaded city health official. Soon he’s scrubbing the filthy apartment clean, and begins snooping around for answers.
This leads him to a fly-by-night health research firm where Jake worked, staffed by an arrogant businessman (John Wesley Shipp) and his germophobe flunky (Jason Abrams). Yuri poses as the replacement cameraman, and is surprised when Mary Kate turns up as one of the clients he’s supposed to interview.
Things go from there. Yuri becomes progressively sicker himself, and when he’s told the symptoms are similar to mad cow disease, he begins to worry for his sanity.
There’s some nifty camera work by cinematographer Hilarion Banks, including a neat effect where it seems like portions of Yuri’s vision are “popping” into the frame. I also liked the moody musical score by John Kaefer.
The cast generally acquits itself pretty well, though there’s a handful of amateurish bits that required more coaching from the director (and probably a few more takes). Lyman-Clarke could also have stood to give the last act of the script some more washes in the rewrite spin cycle, as Yuri cruises around with a CDC worker (Trey Gibbons) who seems way too unhurried about getting his charges to the hospital, instead preferring to conduct some half-assed investigative endeavors that make us question his legitimacy.
Indeed, there's a pervading sense of paranoia to this picture, as everyone we meet seems to have the potential to blindside.
DeSpiegler makes for a solid, relatable figure with his inquisitive features and laidback presence. And Ramsey is intriguing as a young woman who turns out to be a lot more complex than first blush. Keep an eye on this one.
“Night Sweats” is the sort of well-made, under-the-wire flick that leaves you feeling nervous, entertained -- and wanting to wash your hands really, really well.