I was very excited to get the chance to check out Men. It is brought to us by Alex Garland, the man behind the fantastic Ex Machina and Annihilation, two movies I enjoyed a great deal. Plus, this is being put out by A24 who are giving Blumhouse a real run when it comes to my favorite movie studio these days.
How to Download Men
You can stream it or you can download it from Showtime sometime after its theatrical release. Click on the Download button at the end of this review to check the current availability. If you like horrors, check out another film by A24 – X.
The Movie Review
Men is a horror movie and a very strange one with perhaps the strangest ending I have ever seen in a horror movie. The plot of the movie is about a woman called Harper (Jessie Buckley), Harper has been having trouble with her husband, she wants to leave him, he threatens to kill himself, there is an “accident” and he dies in a horrific manner.
To try and get over this, she heads to the English countryside where she is renting a house for some quiet time to be alone. She rents the house from a strange man called Geoffrey (Rory Kinnear) and near enough as soon as she arrives strange things start to happen. She sees a naked guy that appears to be stalking her, a weird kid, the police are weird and just everything going on seems weird.
The weirdest aspect though is that everyone she comes across in this place has a real striking resemblance to Geoffrey. Harper goes through a horrific night where the house is basically under siege and she is just trying to survive! I am fully aware that what I have described sounds like a typical and fun survival, middle of nowhere style of horror movie.
In many ways, Men is exactly that kind of movie and it works really well. You are always on edge, you are always wondering what the hell is up with Geoffrey and people looking like him, but there is a problem. There is no payoff here at all! I do not even think I have the words or the talent to describe the ending of this movie even if I did want to spoil it for you, it is so weird and strange that I just cannot get the words out.
I like weird, strange, and unusual (“I myself am strange and unusual” – major props if you get that reference) however, I get the feeling that Men is trying to have some kind of extra meaning to it, but I just did not get it. I wanted some kind of explanation for what the heck was going on here, but I never got it.
It could be the kind of movie where after discussing it with someone else a lightbulb goes off and I think it is brilliant. However, as of right now, while I did not dislike this movie, I feel like I need to watch it again to see if I can figure out what I have missed. If you like your horror weird, then give Men a watch as it is certainly very weird. I have a feeling that this is going to be a movie that some people really love and others really hate!
