I never saw the debut of writer-director Nicolas Pesce, but, from what I've read, it's depravity for depravity's sake. It's the kind of horror film that turns me off. It's torture porn. It's distinguished by the fact that it focuses on a female serial killer. It showed how a trauma in a child's life can echo when that child is an adult in gruesome ways. It was also shot in all black-and-white with a kind of warped
Leave It To Beaver sensibility to it, at least based on the trailer. He similarly imposes a sensibility or visual style to this film, particularly with his use of miniatures, as he deals with more gruesome ideas. The ideas aren't as gruesome as unnecessary enucleation and a glossectomy. This movie is more about the threat of violence than the actual execution of it. I appreciate that kind of restraint from Pesce. However, connecting the dots of past trauma to inform current pathology isn't what Pesce is doing here. He's simply playing with a sick, twisty tête-à-tête.
Pesce is adapting the 1994 novel by Ryu Murakami. Murakami might be familiar to some as his 1997 novel was also adapted into a film called
Audition (2001). Murakami is a Japanese author who has been writing since the 1970's. His work often finds the confluence of sex and violence. This one is no different in that it involves a married father plotting to kill a prostitute in his hotel room. There are similar elements from
Audition that are present here. There are also similar elements from Pesce's debut feature present here. Murakami or specifically the film
Audition might have been an inspiration for Pesce and with this, he probably is coming full circle.
Christopher Abbott (
First Man and
It Comes At Night) stars as Reed, a business man who is married and has a newborn baby. We see him holding an ice pick over his baby's crib with the intention of stabbing his own infant. Why he has this impulse or feeling is never explained or explored. He's simply psychotic but he's able to stop himself from infanticide. He instead transfers his murderous desire to a prostitute. He plans a trip away from home. He gets a hotel room where he calls a prostitute and meticulously pretends how he will stab and dismember her. He at first codes it as if it's some kind of sadomasochistic thrill for him, but these feelings first manifested as him wanting to kill his own baby, so it's a question if his homicidal tendency is prurient in nature.
Mia Wasikowska (
Alice in Wonderland and
The Kids Are All Right) co-stars as Jackie, the aforementioned prostitute. The movie really provides not much about her beyond being into self-harm. At first, she seems apathetic. Then, she seems wary. She then launches into self-harm. Why or what is fueling her in the initial moments are completely unknown. After a while, it's clear that she's just trying to survive and then give a comeuppance to a psychopath. It's unfortunate though that we don't get her initial motivations or what's fueling her when we meet her.
When it comes to a tête-à-tête or a battle of wills between a man or woman, there are certain excellent examples that come to mind.
The War of the Roses (1989) and
Hard Candy (2005) are two of them. This film isn't as entertaining or even as enthralling as those two examples. Obviously, it's not as gruesome as J-horror can be or even as Pesce previously was, but the back-and-forth between Reed and Jackie isn't as interesting as it could have been. It doesn't feel as that great of a struggle between the two. It's not particularly clever or even all that energetic.
Rated R for aberrant violence, sexual content, nudity and language.
Running Time: 1 hr. and 21 mins.
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