Men * * *

Here's what is good about the film Men - the first hour. 

After that it goes nuts and toward the end it is so so stupid I was literally laughing out loud.  I kid you not, I was slapping my thigh. I'm glad I was the only person in the cinema. It became so gormless, heavy handed, immature, derivative and silly.  It was like a student was given a shit load of money to make a horror film. 

I couldn't believe it was the same film. Have they switched directors half way through?  Did they get things mixed up in the cutting room? I'd heard it was shot during Covid19 lockdown - did this have some effect on things?  It became a slow motion car crash. Watching it fall apart was more disturbing than anything on the screen.

Harper has just about had enough!  
I know how she feels

What started off beautifully ended up as a pile of rubbish.  The weird thing is they must have spent twice as much time and money putting together the special effects in the last fifteen minutes than they did on the parts that were truly effective. 

Jessie Buckley plays Harper. Her husband has died (perhaps suicided, perhaps not). Throughout the film we get flashbacks of her last argument with him, and an insight into his manipulative character. 

Harper seeks solace and time to recover and hires a beautiful place in the country.  The landlord is whacky, eccentric, but harmless  -  or at least seems to be. 

She goes for a walk in the beautiful countryside. This is magic. No words are spoken but a sense of disquiet is building.  Great photography, excellent mood music. A shadowy figure at the end of a disused train tunnel is a wonderful scene.  A naked mud covered man emerging from an empty building is outstanding. She is rattled.  The same man starts appearing in her garden. We see him, she doesn't, for a while.  

The tension and disquiet that is building in this place of beauty works a treat. Trouble in paradise.  I was up for giving it five stars at this stage. But I was soon given reason to knock a few of them stars off.

More men appear (all brilliantly played by Roy Kinnear): a nasty boy, a  duplicitous vicar, an uncaring policeman. Then they all start to become creepy and demanding. Then the references and symbols begin. Druid symbols and ancient carvings.   Then the attacks start and a few good, tense and gruesome scenes are delivered.  Captured hero with knife and determination to live against a bunch of psychos. Good horror. 

But, then the final shit starts: Bodies mutating, men giving birth to men giving birth to men giving birth..... Sounds interesting?  Don't believe it.   We're half way through this tedium when the major character just turns her back and walks away, rather in the way one might respond to an immature or  intoxicated show-off.  I don't know if she was supposed to be frightened or offended or what, but I felt the same as her. If she had impatiently rolled her eyes and said "Oh for Gods sake!", it would have seemed appropriate.

In the end I don't know if it was her hysterical imagination (hardly a compliment to our hero), or if it was supposed to be really happening.  Perhaps it's Alex Garner's (Ex Machina), comment on what men demand of women.   If it is, unfortunately its more of the same - mansplaining. But I'll shut up now before I become guilty of the same thing.