Men (2022)

English folk horror. Very well directed but ultimately gives up narrative in favor of phantasmagoria, for an ultimately unsatisfying watch.

I firmly enjoyed this movie for about 2/3 of its runtime. A woman recovering from her husband's suicide rents an English countryside house, and before long she's stalked by a strange naked man from the woods, and the other villagers—all men except for a lone female police officer and the only sympathetic villager, and all played by the same actor with a great deal of well-done makeup and digital distortion—because less sympathetic and first dismissive, then hostile. In the last third it abandons the mounting drama/thriller effort, which I was enjoying, in favor of folk horror, laden with admittedly very well-done special effects, but more just a spectable and not the narrative denouement I was hoping for. Ultimately what was mostly an atmospheric and tight if low-key thriller just gives up the ghost, and apparent attempts to be meaningful, with a lot of obvious symbolism and numerous clear allusions to fertility and male chauvinism, but no clarity about what it's actually supposed to mean.

From Alex Garland, who wrote "28 Days Later" and wrote and directed "Ex Machina", two of my favorite movies, and the parts of it that were good definitely bear the marks of his skill as a filmmaker. Too bad it got so muddled. I can't even call it watchable, which at least 2/3 of it definitely are, because I walked away disinterested and scratching my head. Not sure what the idea was.