Last Night in Soho

Cert: 18 | ★★★★✩

Acclaimed British writer-director Edgar Wright (Shaun of the Dead, Baby Driver, The Sparks Brothers) delivers a dazzling genre-bending extravaganza in his latest film. Starring Thomasin McKenzie (Leave No Trace, Jojo Rabbit), Anya Taylor-Joy (Emma, The Queen’s Gambit) and Matt Smith (Doctor Who, The Crown), this stunning psychological thriller delves deep into London’s seedy past, all the while paying homage to the Swinging Sixties.

Mckenzie is Eloise/Ellie, an aspiring fashion designer with a mysterious ability who finds herself transported back in time to 1966 London in the body of Sandie (a stunning turn from Taylor-Joy), a talented night club singer. While in Sandie’s body, Ellie is seduced by smouldering lothario Jack (Smith), but she soon realises things aren’t quite as they seem when Sandie is coerced by her new beau into a life of depravity and exploitation.

Homesick and missing her grandmother (Rita Tushingham), Ellie grows closer to fellow fashion student John (Michael Ajao) who is desperate to help her out of her predicament. Elsewhere, Dame Diana Rigg — in one of her last ever roles — stars as the young woman’s stern Soho landlady Mrs Collins, while Synnøve Karlsen delivers a fantastic performance as Ellie’s cruel and condescending former roommate Jocasta.

Horror fan Wright digs deep into his own influences to give us one of his most daring films yet. As well as paying homage to Soho’s rich and vibrant history, he and co-writer Krysty Wilson-Cairns have also devised a commendably precise story about exploitation and abuse. Furthermore, what the film wants to desperately put across is the idea that nothing really changes and that underneath all the new buildings and exclusive upmarket members clubs, Soho is still very much its old seedy self if one scratches the surface hard enough to reveal all its imperfections.

There are hints of Dario Argento giallo horror throughout that may throw off those who might come into this expecting an all-singing all-dancing straightforward narrative.

And while there are a few misses here and there, one has to admire Wright’s exquisite technical work which in the end seduces you into submission.

This is a thrilling, gorgeously acted offering from a filmmaker who is at the top of his craft and knows exactly what he wants from his performers.

Prepare to be charmed, horrified and genuinely startled by Last Night In Soho’s somewhat bonkers premise.

Antlers

Cert: 15 | ★★★✩✩

In a world full of hackneyed, lazy horror narratives, one has to admire any filmmaker who is willing to break out of the mould, even if in the ends they are unable to completely deliver on their ambitious promise. Starring Kerri Russell (The Americans) and Jesse Plemons (The Irishman, I’m Thinking of Ending Things) Scott Cooper’s Antlers sits comfortably in that rare category of horror films one can’t help but root for. Written by C. Henry Chaisson, Nick Antosca, and Cooper, Antlers is adapted from Antosca’s 2019 short story The Quiet Boy.

In a remote Oregon town, Julia Meadows (Russell) a middle-school teacher and her sheriff brother Paul (Plemons) are still dealing with the emotional scars from their abusive upbringing. The siblings become concerned about the wellbeing of a young pupil at the local school whose dark secrets are revealed through some of his very elaborate drawings. Soon Julia and Paul find themselves pursuing a mysterious creature through the Oregon wilderness in the hope of stopping it before it kills again.

Co-produced by acclaimed director Guillermo del Toro, Antlers is both dark in tone and aesthetically stunning to look at. Cooper does a fantastic job in creating a suitably dark and disturbing atmosphere to go with the film’s decidedly dark body horror narrative. Sadly however Antlers eventually leans a little too heavily on jarringly obvious allegories about drug addiction and child abuse, losing all the things it had built on in the process.

Still, there are some very good performances here and more importantly, Cooper’s direction is genuinely stunning throughout. It is therefore a real shame to see such a project gradually lose credibility the closer we hurtled towards its harrowing denouement.

Antlers may not be the film to reinvent the body horror genre, but it does get close, bar a few tropes which we’ve seen done better in other movies.