4 Out of 5 Stars
There are two kinds of Nicholas Winding Refn fans, those that couldn’t seem to connect with Only God Forgives and those that loved it. I personally fell into the latter and felt it was the perfect convergence of the director’s genre influences and his newly emerging visually intensive storytelling style. When I heard for the director’s next project The Neon Demon it would be a horror film focusing on a group of women in LA I was elated to see after the hyper-masculinity of Drive and Only God Forgives to see what he would come up with next.

The Neon Demon follows Jesse (Elle Fanning) a young girl who moves to LA with big dreams of becoming a model. She’s young, beautiful and has that ethereal “it” that you often only hear about. The doors seem to swing right open for her as she is immediately signed with one of the major modeling agencies in town and begins immediately booking gigs with the best photographers. This doesn’t please some of her seniors that have been working the scene far too long to have the new girl simply come in and steal their jobs. But even they can’t argue that there is just something special about her.


While the film builds the horror narrative at its base, it’s constantly deconstructing beauty and its value in society. The seemingly superficial characters have some weighty discussions about not only how it feels to be one of the lucky ones to win the genetic lottery, but also to know it at your core that you got that golden ticket. The gorgeous visuals, which owe a solid debt to Dario Argento’s Suspiria only add to this surreal fever dream as it plays out with some pretty transgressive set pieces that were responsible for 6 walkouts at my screening. The Neon Demon has Refn going all in with not only the gore we’ve experienced in his previous films, but also some of the most stylish cannibalism and necrophilia you’ll ever experience.

The aspect about the film I found most surprising given his previous films is how careful Refn is not to objectify or exploit Jesse given that would par for the course in horror. Instead the camera doesn’t leer at Jesse even though we see those around her do just that. The men in the film are reduced to one-dimensional representations, which given the genre is a refreshing turning of the tables. That being said it’s the models own competitive nature that ultimately drives this narrative, there’s no fighting over boyfriends or favor to be gained from a man, it all simply comes down to shelf life of true beauty and what one would do to extend that.



The Neon Demon almost feels almost like a Neo Giallo, with its breathtaking visuals, but Refn using the legend of Elizabeth Báthory as a springboard has created a truly unique singular vision in a saturated genre. It’s a bleak film, but one that will leave its mark on the viewer, much like the characters in the film there is a lot going on beneath the surface. Jena Malone’s character alone in my mind almost warrants her own film, but the ambiguity left in the final act only intensifies these questions when the credits roll. The Neon Demon is easily one of the best horror films of the year and something fans of the genre need to seek out to experience on the big screen given the visuals and score and how they work to create something you will never get at home.