Thel’s review published on Letterboxd:
so obviously, emphatically personal to Perkins, and frankly to me, that I wish I was able to say this evoked more from me. Thoughtfully composed, but never truly as otherworldly as all its formal signifiers suggest it aspires to be. Its sleek, drab, digital aesthetic does succeed in creating an oppressive, antipathetic atmosphere that permeates each frame — but it also creates some exceedingly uninteresting images relative to the contents of those frames, and the freudian helter skelter mythos it crafts never rises above a mere pastiche of its obvious influences. but a pale imitation of Cure, Silence of the Lambs, and Exorcist III is still pretty fucking good. will need longer to ruminate on Cage; less so the strength of his actual performance (brilliant) or the design (deftly manages to be sufficiently offputting without wading into the territory of “cool”) and more on the textual components of his character, specifically vis a vis queerness — his caked on make-up, tangled, effeminate hair, pink pastel blouses, musical eccentricities and Lou Reed memorabilia. It’s next to impossible not to project the film’s family dynamic onto Perkins, or vice versa, especially given the late Anthony Perkin’s tragic relationship to his own queerness. I don’t feel I yet have the vantage point to arrive at a cogent conclusion about how Perkins characterizes Queerness in this regard, but it is the element of the film that’s lingering with me most, especially given that it’s what renders the film most distinct from its progenitors. want to quickly sing the praises of Maika Monroe, the film’s strongest element. the paradoxical distance and intimacy she imbues in Harker’s eyes are the film’s anchor into my own experience as a woman living in the shadow of an abandoned god. probably my favourite performance of the year thus far
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