After the abusive relationship with her partner (played by Paapa Essiedu) ends abruptly with his traumatic death, Harper -Jessie Buckley- decides to escape from her life and spend a few days in a cottage. Initially it all seems to go swell, yet, after a walk in the forest, Harper encounters a strange, naked man who starts to follow her. This is only the beginning of Harper’s nightmare, as soon after that, everything starts to take a strange turn for the worse.

Aside from the stalker who gets increasingly and disturbingly closer to her, Harper also meets an eerie child who teases her, a local vicar who -in addition to touching her knee inappropriately- suggests that she is responsible of her partner’s death, and a police officer to help who does not seem concerned about her fears.

Up to this point, Men appears to go down the path of other folk horror films like The Wicker Man (the original one), Blood on Satan’s Claw, Eden Lake, A Field in England or, even to a lesser extent, some parts of Straw Dogs (also the original one) and of Edgar Wright’s Hot Fuzz. If those films have demonstrated that the English countryside can be idyllic and ghastly in equal measure, Men uses that as background (thanks to Rob Hardy’s cinematography, the fields and plants feel so vivid that those with allergies might abruptly sneeze) and takes a creepy step further in a different -yet still terrifying- direction, as all the men with whom Harper interacts are played by the same actor, Rory Kinnear – meaning that in an alternate universe, now all the rage, the film might have been titled as The Wicked Man and not Men.

Although Harper does not seem to see the resemblance between the men she encounters, we feel discombobulated as we watch Kinnear portraying a wide range of stereotypes generally associated to men, all to the dismay of Buckley’s character. Kinnear masterfully brings all those roles to life (in more ways than one) by lending them his appearance, yet fleshing them out enough with subtle differences that separate one from the other, thus managing to avoid being superficial and caricaturesque. Buckley, on her part, takes us though the madness and the journey of her character, from being tormented by an abusive relationship -she has constant flashes to her time with her partner-, to becoming a final girl, stronger, yet still unable to see the “reality” in front of her eyes and leave all her suffering behind.

Kinnear’s performance is key for the ideas of the film to work, and although his job is sensational, the film feels slightly less triumphant. As with Alex Garland’s previous films (Ex_Machina and Annihilation), Men might be better or worse, but it cannot be said that it lacks ambition. Using the context and tropes of the horror genre to handle issues such as the loss of touch with the real world as a result of trauma, the dangers of masculinity, and gender-based violence is a superb idea that feels ridiculously suitable (the score constantly adds cohesion to all the different moving parts of the film, simultaneously making us feel tense and putting us in a pastoral environment). However, Men lacks the necessary subtlety and consistence to match the intelligence it appears to have (which now that I think about it might be yet another sly critique on masculinity). It never fully explores the conceits it deals with, ending up turning into a more conventional horror film with a perplexing denouement that is both gross and engrossing, as it follows a route of over-the-top gore, instead of a more challenging conclusion in which we could get some answers to the plethora of questions we might have in our minds.

Certainly worth-watching, if only because of the central performances, Men is a horror film that gives a timely twist to the genre by using it as a setting to explore complex problems of abuse and toxic masculinity. Though not the most prolific of filmmakers, Garland is a highly inventive director and writer who continues to prove that he is able to make a film that is ambitious and original, and whilst Men is not as round as his previous efforts, it fails on its own terms, ensuring that it will have a high number of fans and detractors in the near future.