Men (2022): The Unwavering Horror of Female Solitude
The A24 film Men (2022) is Alex Garland’s newest and third directorial project. His previous works include Ex Machina and Annihaliation. It is evident that weird, cosmic horror is Garland’s forte and Men is certainly no exception. It is a folk, body horror tale in which the protagonist, Harper Marlowe (Jessie Buckley), is staying at an isolated farmhouse in the remote village Cotson. It is a charming place, with expansive furnished rooms, floor-to-ceiling windows, a elegant garden with an exquisite apple tree. The perfect getaway for a woman who needs time to grieve after witnessing her husband kill himself.
Loneliness is a sin for women in horror
Men is an artistic piece in every sense of the word. After getting her things settled, Harper wonders on her own to explore a nearby forest. She follows a path with flourishing green vegetation and laughs to herself when small rain drops start to fall. The imagery is gentle, even if it is exhaustively comparing womanhood to nature.
When Harper wanders to a tunnel, she plays with the acoustics and sings as loud as she can. She is at peace, hope and comfort beaming in her eyes. But of course, this is ruined when a mysterious, shadowy figure at the end of the tunnel stands up and starts running at her. It is a reminder to Harper that, whether she stays or leaves home, women cannot be left alone.
Harper wants, and has the right, to be alone and she is going to fight for it.
Any time a woman is alone in a horror movie – hell, in any movie – it is evident that she will succumb to danger one way or another. When the strange man from the tunnel appears at Harper’s rental home and threatens to break in, Harper calls the police, who tell her the man must be harmless but arrest him nonetheless. Harper later facetimes her friend Riley (Gayle Rankin), who immediately offers to do the four hour drive and stay with Harper. Harper refuses the company, to which many of us in the theater (myself included) immediately shouted “no!” How can she be alone when she is obviously in danger?
However, I thought about it more and I read Heather O’Neill’s essay on the movie, who pointed out that, “[Harper] has come to be by herself, and she is going to work through the terror of it.” Harper wants, and has the right, to be alone. And she is going to fight for it.
There are other small moments in the movie that I was grateful for. In the beginning, the man who owns the house, Geoffrey (Rory Kinnear), gives her a tour. In one scene there is a room with a baby grand piano and Geoffrey asked if she plays, to which she responds “no.” The host admits he also doesn’t, and they continue with the rest of the tour. But later on, it turns out that Harper knows how to play rather well.
I loved this little detail and the strength it carries. Personally, when I have admitted to a man that I can do something, more often than not he immediately needs visual proof. In this case, it’s evident that Harper did not have the emotional space or energy to prove to the host that she has the ability to do something he cannot. I can see it in my head: if she said “yes,” he would pester her to play the piano until she finally gives in just to shut him up. He would make some comment, it would be a whole thing that didn’t need to happen. Sometimes it’s just easier to not admit to men when you can do something.
A little goes a long way.
Where Men has its strengths also lie its weaknesses. The entire movie is dipped, and eventually drowns, in visual metaphors. While folk horrors rely heavily on visual metaphors, there needs to be substance to the plot and this is where Men lacks. For example, the consistent focal point is a church tabernacle whose clay artwork consists of a leaf-man on one side, and a woman with a spread-open vagina on the other. Garland goes back to this scene often, holding the viewer’s hand in case we didn’t get the reference that historically, specifically in colonial Christian societies, womanhood is defined by biology.
Another example: unless it is in fear, women historically do not scream a lot in movies. Men scream and shout as loud as they want, whether it is in anger or joy or sorrow, because in a patriarchal world men can and need to be heard. There is a moment in Men when Harper visits a church and, after exploring its artifacts, sits in a pew and screams as loud as she can. She is overcome by grief and mental reruns of her husband falling to his death. And sometimes screaming is just what a person needs to do to let it all out.
I want to see women scream more, and not just because she is running for her life. But then a priest walks up to her and points out how he noticed her scream and how she must be tormented, an immediate shutdown of her emotions. Later in the movie, we see that famous visual trope of Harper dunking her head underwater in a bathtub and screaming. This is so no one, not even in a remote house in a meagerly populated town, can hear. And it is certainly no coincidence that her mouth looks an awful lot like Men’s visual depiction of a human vagina.
Blood blood blood
Let’s not forget the bloody climactic birth scene. It is set off by the visual of apples falling from a tree, an old metaphor for fertility. Soon, all the men in the movie who either terrorized or threatened Harper’s safety give birth to each other in a tumultuous depiction of the female human life cycle. Garland’s imagery is trying very hard to prove that gender is fluid and not simply biological, but that gets lost in the bloody sauce. There is also plenty of phallus symbolism, specifically with a bloody knife, Harper’s only weapon. Symbolism meager at best.
When the movie ends after the seemingly endless birth cycle, Riley finally meets Harper at Cotson and the audience learns Riley is pregnant. At this point of the movie, that little detail is thrown in there for no reason. There is fundamentally no purpose for this detail, which maybe is the whole point. Who knows? I wouldn’t be surprised if I’m putting more thought into it than the movie’s creators.
The Verdict
Men, in short, is an all too real story of the danger women face when being alone. It is about female isolation and men’s interference with that personal space. It is not nuanced in it’s message of what happens when women are alone. Horror movies have been telling us that for as long as they’ve existed.
Don’t get me wrong, Men is well made and well written. The acting is incredible and bring this character-driven story to life. The smallest details and simplicity are where it shines best. But the cumbersome plot sadly outweighs that.
At the end of the day, Men is another movie written by a man trying to understand the female experience as simplistically, binarized, and white as possible. Its goal in not reducing our bodies to our parts fails. And, frankly, I am tired.
(2.5 / 5)
*All photos screenshot from the movie’s YouTube trailer*
We’ve reached the final episode of American Horror Stories, season three. After the ups and downs of the season, I didn’t know what to expect. I felt that we were due a big finish, Killer Queens. But I feared we were in for a big letdown.
As it turns out, The Thing Under The Bed was neither.
The story
We begin our story with a little girl named Mary, who is scared of something under her bed. She sneaks out of her room, only to be caught by her father and sent back to sleep. And of course, there is something horrible waiting for her under her bed.
This scene cuts away to a woman named Jillian. She has strange dreams, including one about Mary. But her husband, Mark, doesn’t want to hear about it. He’s only interested in a little lovemaking because he wants a baby. Jillian doesn’t, which makes total sense because she’s already married to one. But her irritation with her childish husband goes away when he goes away. And by goes away, I mean he’s sloppily devoured by something vicious under their bed.
What worked
In short, this episode just worked. The acting was professional and believable. The cinematography and lighting work were wonderful, adding spooky effects and startling moments without impairing visibility.
Best of all, the story was solid. There were no plotholes to be found. Our main character, Jillian, was relatable and sympathetic.
This was maybe my favorite part of the story. I thought Jillian was a remarkably sympathetic character. She was dealt a hand she never asked for, having her husband slaughtered in their bedroom. I don’t think she missed him, so much as she was afraid of the legal ramifications of being caught with literal blood on her hands.
Then, when it would have been safest for her to just lay low and save up for a good defense attorney, she instead goes into unlikely hero mode. She does her best to save people, putting herself in legal and physical danger. It’s hard not to root for her.
It’s also a little hard not to root for the antagonist, too. I don’t want to ruin the twist for you, so I’m going to tread lightly here. But it’s great when you have an antagonist who might be off their rocker, but also maybe has a point.
What didn’t work
I can only really think of one complaint with this episode. And that is how frequently one character says the word Chickadee. And if you’ve seen the episode, you know what I am talking about.
I get it, he has a pet name for his daughter. It’s adorable. It’s meant to convey that the two of them have a healthy loving relationship and I get it. We all get it. Blind monks get it. But the fact remains that no parent on Earth calls their kid by their pet name every single time they speak an individual sentence to them. It was just too damn much.
All in all, this was a good episode. It was a classic story, turned on its head, told by professionals from start to finish. And I hope that if there is another season, we see more stories like this one. But after the efforts put into this season at large, I wouldn’t be surprised if this is the last we see of American Horror Stories.
(4 / 5)
If you’ve watched enough short-form horror anthology shows, you’ll notice that some stories are mainstays. Each show seems to put on the same sort of episodes, with the occasional surprising storyline that we’ve never (or at least rarely) seen before.
Leprechaun was an example of a repeated story—the story of a greedy thief whose punishment far outweighs the crime.
The story
We begin our story in 1841, with a drunk man leaving the bar one late night. He’s distracted by something glowing at the end of the well. When he reaches down for the glowing thing, he falls in. Moments later, he screams.
We then cut to the modern day. The well is still there, and now it’s surrounded by a dying town. In this town lives a young man named Colin. He’s married, his wife is pregnant, and he’s out of work. Like many of his friends.
Desperate for cash, Colin and his friends decide to rob a bank. They put together an Equate version of Ocean’s Eleven, and break in one night. But, of course, they find that the gold is nothing more than bait. And the creature waiting for them is something they never expected.
What worked
The first thing I want to point out is how real this episode felt. At least to anyone currently living in the same small town they grew up in. These characters felt like guys I went to school with. Guys I would see at the bar.
I appreciated the real anger and frustration these characters are feeling. Especially Colin. He’s bitter, and maybe he has a right to be. He did exactly what he was supposed to do to succeed. He went to school and invested in his career, and yet now he’s out of work and struggling to support his family. I probably don’t need to tell you how that feels. Because of this, we can all kind of understand why he was tempted to rob a bank.
I also want to talk about the fact that this was, as I said, an often-explored story. That can be a bad thing, but it can also be a good thing. This story is told over and over because it’s a good story. A relatable story. And there’s nothing wrong with that.
What didn’t work
That being said, this version didn’t try to do much to break out of the mold.
Because we have seen this story so many times, most of us could tell the story themselves. I would have expected something new, or some twist. But, in the end, the story didn’t bring anything new to the discussion.
Maybe because of this, the ending left a lot to be desired. Trapped in the basement of the bank, everyone just sort of stares at everyone else, until the thieves give up. And that’s it. The ending wasn’t scary, shocking, or funny. It was just sad, on multiple levels.
Overall, this was an okay story. It was entertaining, if not surprising. I would compare this episode to homemade macaroni and cheese. Everyone’s got their own version, they’re all pretty good, and none of them are exciting.
There’s just one episode left in this season of American Horror Stories. Let’s hope they’ve saved the best for last.
(3.5 / 5)
It happened. It finally happened. We got another good episode of American Horror Stories.
The story
We begin our story late at night, with a hospital security guard named Malcolm. He is frightened one night when he sees a woman with a distorted face in the hospital parking lot.
We then joined an RN named Claire. She’s doing her best to explain to a struggling mother that the hospital will not be able to treat her son with cancer because she can’t afford the treatment.
Not like she’s happy about it.
Fortunately, Dr. Nostrum, played by the legend Henry Winkler, swoops in at the last moment to tell the mother that her son qualifies for a special place in his cancer treatment clinic.
Claire is lamenting the fact that she became an RN to help people, but it feels like she isn’t doing anything good. Then, she and her friend Lilly stumble upon the same woman who menaced Malcom the night before.
While Claire is trying to figure out what’s wrong with this woman, she brutally slaughters an orderly and vanishes into the hospital. But not before struggling to say two words to Claire. Ward X.
What worked
I want to start by praising the effects of this episode. Because they were fantastic. Aided by the black and white filming, the bloody and distorted faces of Alice and her fellow victims are nightmarish. They look like a horrific version of Lockjaw taken to a terrifying extreme.
I also want to discuss the fantastic work of Henry Winkler. He is an absolute legend and never has a bad project.
Winkler’s character in this episode was exactly what we’d expect from him. He seems genuinely warm and kind, concerned about others’ well-being. Even when he’s planning to kill Claire, he comes off as such a caring guy.
Finally, I want to talk about the historical significance of this story. Because, like I always say, the scariest stories are the ones based on truth. And I’m sorry to say, this story has a basis in truth.
Mankind has a dark and twisted history when it comes to medical advances. Most doctors and scientists are good, moral people who abide by the first line of the Hippocratic oath, to first do no harm. Some, historically, are little more than monsters in white coats. Consider the Tuskegee Experiment, Unit 731, and the horrific acts of Josef Mengele. If you’re going to look up that middle one, be warned that it is NSFL.
While this episode of American Horror Stories was a work of fiction, it wasn’t that far off. I don’t think many of us want to admit how close to real life it was. This is the gift of good horror, to force us to come face to face with the worst aspects of humanity. To acknowledge them, accept them, and change them.
All in all, this was a perfect episode. The acting, the effects and the story were all top-shelf. And it’s certainly a story that will stick with you.
There are just two episodes left in this season of American Horror Stories. Let’s hope that they reach closer to the quality of X, and away from the dull and dismal episodes that began the second half of this season.
(5 / 5)
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