The Night Nurse is a somewhat unusual film with a couple of twists and turns. Igor Auzins, the director, competently tells the story of an ageing opera singer, The Diva played by Davina Whitehouse and her housekeeper and companion Clara who is played by Kay Taylor A young night nurse is hired by the Diva, Prudence Simpson-Kate Fitzpatrick to care for her much to the resentment of Clara. Throw Prudence's ex-boyfriend and aspiring artist Rick-Gary Day and you have quite an effective little thriller.There are a couple of murders, one quite early in the piece and a rather odd method of killing a goldfish but the emphasis is on suspense rather than violence.The Night Nurse is an odd little movie and with a clearer story-line could have been better, but all up it's an enjoyable jaunt into Aussie cinema back when there were quite a few independent horrors and thrillers being made.I would have liked the backstory of Bessie and the game to have been examined a little more but all up, not a bad movie.

Rahter a stinker of an Australian drama/mystery/horror movie. A young woman is hired to be a night nurse for an elderly former opera star almost always only called "The Diva." The Diva's current nurse and companion, an elderly woman named Clara who is The Diva's sole heir, is unhappy anyone new is being hired.Clara has taken the job to become independent of her artist boyfriend, who she has left, but remains friendly with him. Initially, it seems The Diva is a decent old lady and Clara an awful person (in fact in an early scene, if not the opening one, we see her kill a man who barges into the house to look at some expensive paintings). Clara does some nasty things evidently meant to encourage the night nurse to leave, if not actually harm or kill her. What she does to a pet goldfish is quite remarkable, if bizarre.It seems like The Diva has guests (or sounds like it), but Clara denies that there are any. Also suspicious is what happened to The Diva's late sister Bessie.Everything gets more or less wrapped up in the end. One death is rather silly, as a hatchet that is swung has its head spin 180 degrees mid-swing....