Men

 Year:  2022

Director:  Alex Garland

Screenplay:  Alex Garland

Starring:  Jessie Buckley, Rory Kinnear, Paapa Essiedu, Gayle Rankin

Running Time:  100 minutes

Genre:  Horror

Following the apparent suicide of her abusive husband (Essiedu), Harper Marlowe (Buckley) takes a two week break from her home in London, renting a holiday home in the isolated village of Cotson.  During a long walk in the country, Harper is horrified by a vision of a naked hairless man, who appears to follow her home.  Walking around the village, Harper is deeply disturbed by the creepy, toxic men that she encounters (all of whom are played by Kinnear).

This is a deeply strange, but oddly effective slice of folk horror, a subgenre of horror films which use folklore and tradition, particularly in a rural, isolated landscape.  Jessie Buckley, who is one of the best actors working at the moment, gives a fantastic performance as the tormented Harper, and Rory Kinnear is fantastic as multiple men, all of whom display various types of toxic masculinity, and the truly disturbing image of Kinnear's face superimposed on a schoolboy, who frequently wears a Marilyn Monroe mask.  The death of Harper's husband, and the events leading up to it, are shown piece by piece in flashback, lit in a warm, orange, late-evening light, while the scenes in the country are all bright greens and grey stones.  the film uses a lot of religious and pagan imagery, particular the Green Man (a face surrounded by leaves and vegetation).  For the most part, this is a strange, effective slow-burner, however in the last act, the film seems to go in for more conventional horror movie territory, before ending in genuinely nightmarish, surreal imagery.  I enjoyed the film, even though I am not sure I really understood everything that was happening in it.  This is a film that is worth your time, a powerful and pertinent look at disturbing and problematic male behaviour, particularly against women, and some of the most memorable, bizarre imagery to be seen in a long time.  

 Jessie Buckley in Men

Lamb

Year:  2021

Director:  Vladimar Jóhansson

Screenplay:  Sjón and Vladimar Jóhansson

Starring:  Noomi Rapace, Hilmer Snær Guðnason, Björn Hlyner Haaraldsson

Running Time:  107 minutes

Genre:  Fantasy, horror

María (Rapace) and Ingvald (Guðnason) live alone on an isolated sheep farm in Iceland.  One day they discover that one of their sheep has given birth to a strange, part-sheep part-human creature.  They name the creature Ada and raise her as if she was a human child.  However, it isn't long before their little family idyll is shattered.

This is a deeply strange slice of folk-horror, which plays like a strange fairytale.  The film has a contemporary setting, but it barely pays lip service to our modern age.  The characters wear modern clothes, they watch television, listen to the radio and have a tractor, but it really could be set at any time, with barely any change in plot.  It moves at a sedate pace, without much dialogue.  There is a lot that is suggested without being explained.  It appears that María had a child called Ada who died, whether with Ingvald or not is never revealed, and also that María had an affair with Ingvald's ne'er-do-well brother Pétur (Haraldson), although it is only hinted at when Pétur, who turns up to crash at the farm, tries to seduce her.  Ingvald never mentions it and it is never clear whether he ever knew about it.  Ada is a comic-horrible creation, a young girl with the head and right arm of a sheep, but there is also real sweetness there, and there is a genuine love and connection in the family, which makes the inevitable tragedy really heartbreaking.  The cast are impressive, particularly Noomi Rapace, and the rural settings are truly beautiful.  However, it is very slow, and it's suspense really comes from the knowledge that there is going to be something bad happening, but not knowing what.  It will probably be seen as a cult film in years to come. 

Hilmer Snær Guðnason and Noomi Rapace in Lamb
   

In the Earth

Year of Release:  2021

Director:  Ben Wheatley

Screenplay:  Ben Wheatley

Starring:  Joel Fry, Ellora Torchia, Reece Shearsmith, Hayley Squires

Running Time:  107 minutes

Genre:  Horror

The world is devastated by a pandemic.  In a large forest in England, scientist Martin Lowery (Fry) arrives at a research station, where he is due to investigate crop growth under respected scientist Olivia Wendle (Squires).  However, the only way to reach Mandell's camp is an arduous two day trek on foot through the forest.  With forest ranger Alma (Torchia) as guide, Martin sets off.  Before long it becomes apparent that there is something strange in the forest.  Despite it being out of bounds to civilians, they discover the remnants of a family's camp, but the family themselves have vanished.  At night, Martin and Alma are attacked by an unseen force that destroys their equipment, and steals their shoes, forcing them to continue barefoot.   Martin badly injures his foot, but they are rescued by Zach (Shearsmith), a seemingly friendly man living off the grid in the forest.  However Zach has his own reasons for helping them, and they learn that the dark folklore surrounding the forest may be more than just local fairytales, as ancient superstition and modern science collide.

Prolific British filmmaker Ben Wheatley has made a name for himself as one of the most interesting directors working in modern horror.  His films remind me a little of the old rhyme about the little girl with the little curl right in the middle of her forehead:  when they are good they are very, very good, but when they are bad, they are horrid.  Although in Wheatley's case, less horrid and more indulgent and baffling.  In the Earth mixes the best and the worst of Wheatley's work.  As with several of his films (such as Kill List (2011), Sightseers (2012) and A Field in England (2013)) this could be described as "folk horror", a subgenre of horror films set in rural locations and often dealing with themes such as tradition, religion, isolation and nature, although Wheatley has stated that he dislikes the term.  The film is visually spectacular, with beautiful, poetic imagery, and moments of real, genuinely scary, horror, it also is overlong and falls apart into  bizarre psychedelic nonsense.  Towards the end it becomes completely baffling.  Wheatley claims that the film was written and shot within fifteen days during August 2020, in between lockdowns, and it may be one of the first, but it certainly won't be the last, films to deal with COVID-19, although COVID is never actually mentioned in the film, the facemasks, constant handwashing, hand sanitisers and references to "a third wave" and "lockdown" feels all too depressingly familiar in this year of 2021, and will probably make it feel a little dated in a year or two.  Joel Fry and Ellora Torchia make engaging, sympathetic leads, although Wheatley never seems particularly interested in his characters, something which I have noticed in several of his films.  There is a kind of dark cynicism in Wheatley's work, a sense of humanity being just patsies in a giant, cruel cosmic joke, which may very well be the case, but it makes for a rather miserable experience.  It says a lot for Joel Fry and Ellora Torchia that they make their characters as likeable as they are.  Reece Shearsmith (The League of Gentlemen (1999-2002), Psychoville (2009-2011) and Inside No. 9 (2014-present)) is perfectly cast and has some fantastic dark comic-horror moments.  When Martin and Alma are in his power, and he is chasing after them with a hatchet, those scenes are really scary.  The film slows down when Olivia Wendle appears, although Hayley Squires does well with a pretty underwritten part.  Both Zach and Olivia are trying to invoke a primal nature spirit, lurking within the forest, Zach by ritual and sacrificial magic, and Olivia with science.  The film has it's points to make about science versus magic, and how the divide between the two may not be as definitive as you may think; and the revenge of nature.    The nature of what is in the woods is never revealed, and it all ends in a frustratingly obscure fashion.  There is a difference between the tantalisingly ambiguous and annoyingly incomprehensible.  Frustrating, confusing, slow at times and badly paced, the film has enough frightening and intriguing moments to make it worth watching, and it has some beautiful images and a complex, innovative sound design, which does benefit a lot from being seen on the big screen.  There is a vein of dark humour running throughout which is often very funny.  It's not full of gore, but there are scenes which even I, a hardened horror film viewer, winced at.  A word of warning, if you are at all squeamish about feet, and nasty things happening to said feet, then you will want to proceed with caution.  Another note of caution, is that the film features a lot of strobing effects, which may cause problems for some viewers.    Ben Wheatley is a very talented filmmaker, and he has a great film in him, but this is not it.

Ellora Torchia and Joel Fry in In the Earth
   

The Lighthouse

Year of Release:  2019

Director:  Robert Eggers

Screenplay:  Robert Eggers and Max Eggers

Starring:  Robert Pattinson, Willem Dafoe

Running Time:  109 minutes

Genre:  Period drama, horror

In the late 19th century, two lighthouse keepers (or "wickies") head out to tend to a remote lighthouse off the coast of New England.  When they are stranded at the lighthouse during a terrible storm, their sanity begins to unravel due to the stress, the lack of supplies, the harsh conditions on the island, their isolation and their heavy drinking.

Director and co-writer Robert Eggers first came to prominence in 2016 with his feature debut The Witch, and has come out with one of the strangest films in recent years.  Filmed in crisp black-and-white, with dialogue influenced by the journals of lighthouse keepers of the period and the works of 19th Century American writer Sarah Orne Jewett, with elements from Herman Melville, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Robert Louis Stevenson and Edgar Allan Poe, the film mixes bleak realism, surreal fantasy and elements of lowbrow comedy (there are a surprising amount of fart jokes).  The film is almost entirely a two hander between Robert Pattinson as the neurotic newcomer and Willem Dafoe, as the irritable, superstitious veteran, both turning in fantastic performances, alternating between tentative friendliness, almost homoerotic intimacy, odd-couple comedy and real menace and threat as the balance of powers shifts in some unexpected ways.  The film almost feels like a queasy nightmare, and a relic from a previous age.  It's full of references to art, literature and mythology, and cinematically feels like a folk horror film from Ingmar Bergman or Carl Theodor Dreyer, although it properly belongs to a world far older than cinema.  This is a film that may not exactly be enjoyable in a conventional sense, but people will be looking at it and analysing it for years to come.

 Willem Dafoe and Robert Pattinson in The Lighthouse

Midsommar

Year of Release:  2019
Director:  Ari Aster
Screenplay:  Ari Aster
Starring:  Florence Pugh, Jack Reynor, William Jackson Harper, Vilhelm Blomgren, Will Poulter
Running Time:  147 minutes
Genre:  Folk horror

New York City:  Student Dani Arbor (Pugh) is deeply traumatised after her sister kills herself and their parents.  Her trauma puts a further strain on her already collapsing relationship with boyfriend Christian (Reynor).  Christian and his friends, Mark (Poulter) and Josh (Harper), are planning a month long trip to Sweden with their Swedish friend Pelle (Blomgren) during which they plan attend a nine-day midsummer festival that is only held every ninety years at Pelle's ancestral commune.  When Dani learns about the trip, Christian awkwardly invites her along.  When they arrive, the locals seem welcoming and friendly, but as the festivities progress, the rituals and ceremonies become increasingly bizarre and disturbing, and the tourists soon discover the commune's terrifying dark side.

Writer and director Ari Aster made a splash in 2018 with his debut film Hereditary.  This is a different style of film.  It belongs to a sub-genre of horror known as folk horror, which is mostly set in isolated rural locations and based around folk traditions and beliefs.  Here is horror set entirely in beautiful sunlit locations and, unusually for a horror film,  it almost all takes place in broad daylight.  The story unfolds at a languid pace, but has an ever present disturbing atmosphere that increases as it goes on.  It uses a lot of subtle tricks with sound and visuals making it a hallucinatory and often nightmarish experience.  Florence Pugh is wonderful in the lead, the other characters don't really have much to do except react to what happens to them, but there are some well-drawn tensions between the others in the group (Mark is extremely gauche and insensitive, Josh believes that Christian wants to copy his thesis and Pelle is in love with Dani).  There is also a surprising amount of humour, it is a very funny film.  Watching it, I felt constantly off balance and disoriented as it moves from domestic drama to poetic beauty, to crude humour, to disturbing surrealism to flashes of quite shocking gore.  I thought this film was really something special. 

Florence Pugh in Midsommar