5. The Perfection
Director and co-writer (along with Eric C. Charmelo and Nicole Snyder) Richard Shephard’s latest bizzaro, blood-soaked revenge fantasy The Perfection is a risky, risqué, detour down avenues previously explored by Brian De Palma in his heyday, with a dash of Darren Aronofsky (particularly Black Swan) and Pascal Laugier (Martyrs), and if that psychotic and sick sounding aperitif whets your thirst, drink deep of this gripping psycho-thriller.
Lizzie (Logan Browning) and Charlotte (Allison Williams) are two elite cellists whose paths are fatefully intertwined when the latter comes out of a long retirement and reestablishes contact with her old teacher, Anton (Steven Weber), the head of the renowned Bachoff Academy.
And this is where our storyline synopsis will end because The Perfection, for better or worse, is the kind of intricate and unsettling head trip that hinges on a number of plot-twists that upend the tale and change its meaning at different and always distressing intervals.
Is it a gimmick? Sure, but it’s a good enough one, pulling in smutty obsession, startling violence, sexually-charged cello performances, and sickly satisfying requital.
4. Knife+Heart
Part parody, part homage, this beautiful film from Yann Gonzalez is a meticulously crafted nightmare. Set in a neon-lit Paris in 1979, the city thrums with disco and electronica (the score by M83 gets my vote for best soundtrack of the year!) as Anne Parèze (Vanessa Paradis), an agitated and obsessed gay porn producer pines to infuse meaning into her work, and also pines for her ex, Lois (Kate Moran). But it’s not in the cards for Anne when a masked murderer goes after her repertoire company in a very grisly fashion.
The giallo-influence saturates every frame, elegantly shot on 35mm by Simon Beaufils, this is a super-stylish and lurid celebration of both the erotic and horrific.
Cinephiles will also appreciate the nods to Michael Powell’s Peeping Tom, De Palma classics like Phantom of the Paradise and Body Double, Friedkin’s Cruising, and Todd Haynes’ Poison. Gonzalez’s attention to detail, both visual and sonically, gives this disco-dyed, erotically-charged horror-thriller sweetmeat all it needs to make it one of 2019’s most savage standouts.
3. Midsommar
Like writer-director Ari Aster’s previous film Hereditary (2018), overwhelming grief and the delicate threads of family reputably fray at the center of Midsommar, a gorgeously depicted and frequently gruesome folk-horror freakout. Fans of slow-burn mental anguish and arthouse aversion will find much to admire and dismay about in this lavishly detailed Swedish-set travelogue of terror.
Florence Pugh, so brilliant in Lady Macbeth (2016), is mesmerizingly vivid and volatile here as Dani, a young American woman navigating a devastating loss who, along with her boyfriend, Christian (Jack Reynor) and his friends, lose themselves on a “once-in-a-lifetime” getaway to a remote Swedish village where the midsummer festival there is a big deal. As Dani and her friends get swept up in the pagan traditions of their cult-like hosts, it’s not long before things get eerie and injurious.
While shades of Ken Russell’s The Devils (1971) and Robin Hardy’s The Wicker Man (1973) seem to be obvious influences, Aster’s eye for detail (Henrik Svensson’s intricate production design and Pawel Pogorzelski’s expert lensing are sublime), his deliberate pacing, and his operatic story structure, amounts to one hallucinatory headtrip. Midsommar is menacing, make no mistake, but it’s also intermittently humorous, airily transgressive, shockingly gory, and will linger long in the mind. Don’t miss it.
2. Us
Creepy, funny, and absolutely thrilling, Jordan Peele’s Us stars a riveting Lupita Nyong’o as Adelaide Wilson, a woman recovering from a childhood trauma who retreats with her husband (Winston Duke) and two kids to the beachfront home where she grew up.
Adelaide becomes increasingly concerned by odd coincidences and strange omens as her darkest fears actualize when four shadow-obscured strangers descend upon their home, instigating the Wilsons into a fight-or-flight struggle.
And what’s even odder is that the strangers appear to be the Wilsons’ doppelgängers, and before you can say “dead ringers” shit gets shockingly real.
An artful exploitation picture, Us is also interested in exploring the history of oppression in America, and while it plays with pop culture, Peele trots out a vibrant discussion on class, privilege, and race, that you didn’t even realize you were having until you pull back from it in absolute awe.
1. In Fabric
This ulta-stylish deference to Euro-horror from sly English writer-director Peter Strickland is his most outlandish, over-the-top, and batshit brilliant coup de cinema yet. In Fabric ostensibly tells the tale of a cursed killer dress and the ill-starred humans in helpless orbit around it.
When overlooked and underappreciated single mom Sheila (Marianne Jean-Baptiste) braves the bustling winter sales season at a literally hellish department store, an eccentric and rather spectral saleswoman Miss Luckmoore (Fatma Mohamed) entices her into purchasing a voodooed garment. Unsuspecting, Sheila’s fate is sealed, and she won’t be the first, nor the last, to fall under the dress’s strange and savage spell.
As a meticulous madness descends, so does Strickland’s uncanny knack for displaying tactile pleasures, visual responses, and barbed perceptions of consumerism and the occult.
Tim Gane’s score perfectly suits the fetishistic adulations to the psychedelic sex-horror and near-maudlin melodrama of Jesús Franco and Jean Rollin. And there’s enough blood-curdling shrills to conjure Dario Argento and David Lynch to the table, but Strickland’s bizarro mashup of flagrant psychedelia, giallo, midnight movies, and softcore erotica still makes him an absolute original, as imaginative and resolute as they come.
Strickland’s definitely an acquired taste, but for cineastes in search of surreal horror assembled with slavishly detailed fizz, deep fascination, and a sense of obscuro adventure, you won’t find a finer, freakier, meticulously embroidered nightmare anywhere else.
Author Bio: Shane Scott-Travis is a film critic, screenwriter, comic book author/illustrator and cineaste. Currently residing in Vancouver, Canada, Shane can often be found at the cinema, the dog park, or off in a corner someplace, paraphrasing Groucho Marx. Follow Shane on Twitter @ShaneScottravis.