After David Cronenberg introduced the world to disgustingly horrific body horror in his early films, it has become a cult favorite subgenre with horror.
As a result of technology advancing, body horror has lost a bit of its spark thanks to the decreased usage of prosthetics and practical effects. Thankfully, auteur director Alex Garland gave the world a brief glimpse into the subgenre again with the divisive film Men. Buoyed by leading woman Jessie Buckley, it’s very much been part of the new wave of horror cinema.
Ridiculously on the nose with its themes but featuring some of the most violently horrific moments in the modern horror canon, it’s sparked a big debate on Reddit.
The proponents of Men praise it for its creepy ambience and subtle build-up to its craziness, as well as the restraint it shows for its first two acts before the crescendo into madness. It’s nearly universally agreed the film is however lacking in much subtlety over its themes, with it mirroring a Twilight Zone anthology story at times..
Conversely, others felt it went for far too long and lacked the consistency of director Garland’s previous films such as Ex Machina or cosmic horror Annihilation. The call of there only being two memorable scenes is a searing hot take, considering most of the film is dedicated to building an atmosphere.
Slow burn horror is a hard one to get absolutely right, with audiences so conditioned to getting straight into the spooks and gore such as in slasher films or paranormal investigation films.
It’s probably just “A24 horror film in a nutshell”, as horror becomes one of the defining features of the distributor who have continued to release indie films with very dark cores.
Men is available to rent from iTunes, YouTube, and Amazon Prime Video.
