|
|
IN FABRIC
Director: Peter Strickland Cast: Marianne Jean-Baptiste, Hayley Squires, Leo Bill, Fatma Mohamed, Jaygann Ayeh, Julian Barratt, Steve Oram, Gwendoline Christie, Barry Adamson MPAA
Rating: Running Time: 1:58 Release Date: 12/6/19 (limited) |
|
Review by Mark Dujsik | December 5, 2019 It's the perfect red dress, appropriate for any occasion—from a blind date to a gag at a bachelor's party. Everyone's taken by the dress at the center of In Fabric, and then, the dress takes them. Writer/director Peter Strickland's film is a strange one—a combination of almost surrealistic satire and absurd horror. The targets of the filmmaker's mockery include consumerism, far-too self-serious systems of decorum, and the insular nature of small-town living, with a healthy splash of people behaving in ways that are thoughtless, gross, or dreadfully boring. Nobody seems to notice or speak of how terrible the world of the film is, and when one person dares to fight against the patent oddness of this place, she doesn't fare well for the effort. That woman is Shelia (Marianne Jean-Baptiste), who is separated from her husband and looking for companionship through personal ads in the local newspaper. After setting up a date, she goes to a local department store, currently running its famous clearance sale, and finds a red dress with a black flame embroidered at the waist. It seems perfect—or at least that's what Miss Luckmoore (Fatma Mohamed), the saleswoman who speaks in flowery prose, says. We later learn, after the dress begins moving of its own volition and causing bloody chaos with Shelia's washing machine, that the woman who modeled the dress for the store's catalogue died a tragic death. The dress later finds itself in the possession of Reg (Leo Bill), whose talk about washing machines makes people go cross-eyed with boredom, and his fiancée Babs (Haley Squires), who's insecure about her figure. As we quickly come to figure out, the dress is indeed haunted, either because of a ghost or of its own nature. Like so much of the story and so many of the characters (Shelia's bosses scold her for waving at another boss' mistress, and whatever is happening behind-the-scenes at the store is too strange to put into words), the concept of a killer dress is inherently silly. Strickland, who's clearly going for humor and not horror, creates a certain, nightmarish logic to everything that unfolds, though. In Fabric is wickedly amusing, and despite or because of how weird it is, there is a constant sense of unease to all of it. Does it make sense? When you're dealing with a killer dress, does it have to? Copyright © 2019 by Mark Dujsik. All rights reserved. |
Buy Related Products
|
(for
strong sexual content including a scene of aberrant behavior, and some
bloody images)
