Comedy horror at its daftest
In Fabric (R13, 118 mins) Directed by Peter Strickland Reviewed by Graeme Tuckett ★★★★1⁄2
We’re in London, sometime in the 1970s. Recently divorced Sheila (Marianne JeanBaptiste) is out, maybe looking for a few new items for her wardrobe as she flings herself into the slowmotion humiliations of dating via newspaper classified ads – think Tinder, but with stamps and envelopes – when she happens upon a truly swell little frock in a department store. The dress is in a shade of red described in the catalogue as ‘‘Artery’’, which kind of sets the tone for what is to come.
After an exchange of hysterically gnomic inscrutability with the store’s chilly assistant manager, the deal is done. Sheila takes her purchase home to her thunderously indifferent son and his obnoxious-to-the-point-of-caricature girlfriend.
And then, as the previews love to say, all bloody hell breaks out.
The dress is some sort of possessed remnant of a demonic cult. Whether or not it is a cult of death or fertility is hard to say, as director Peter Strickland seems happy to have a dollar each way.
And with the cult’s rituals mainly being voiced by the aforementioned assistant manager – complete with all the requisite moaning, writhing and incantations the genre demands – I don’t reckon it even matters too much.
All of which could easily be a description of some of the worst straight-to-the-sale-bin drivel you have ever sat through in your life. But In Fabric is not that film.
I’d be lying if I said I’d ‘‘never seen anything like it’’. But I’d have to dig into the back catalogues of Nic Roeg (Don’t Look Now), Panos Cosmatos (Mandy) and, especially Dario Argento (Suspiria), to give you examples. Strickland proved with Berberian Sound Studio (2012) that he is a horror-stylist and choreographer of dislocating mayhem for the ages.
He infuses In Fabric with sequences of daft carnage that run the gamut from hilarious to horrifying and back again.
There is a genuine 1970s aesthetic at play, with kaleidoscope filters, crash zooms and Moog synths thrown about with such joyous abandon it’s as if Rome’s Cinecitta Studios is still turning out the films that defined the psychological horror genre.
Helping immeasurably is the score, from Holger Zapf, and Tim Gane of Stereolab, that perfectly captures the woozy menace of the best of the films of the era.
Try to imagine – and you have my undying respect if you can – the cast of Are You Being Served? putting on The Exorcist. That’s In Fabric. And, if any of this makes it sound like something you want to see, then, trust me, you do.
In Fabric is now screening in select cinemas.