Dir. Peter Strickland. 118 minutes.
Low-key single mom Sheila (Marianne Jean-Baptiste) splashes out on a bold red chiffon dress in preparation for a blind date. But the dress, it transpires, was sewn by a coven of witches, bringing doom upon anyone who puts it on. Sheer horror, indeed.
Please don’t let the prospect of a murderous dress turn you off: “In Fabric” is audacious, weird, mesmerizing, absurd, serious, amusing, frightening and baffling, often all at once. Every frame is confrontingly saturated, awash in lurid crimsons and golds rarely seen since the ‘70s. Though it draws liberally on giallo classics like “Suspiria,” “In Fabric” isn’t mere nostalgia-bait.
“In Fabric” is also surprisingly funny. Humor and uncanny horror are both built on incongruities, which this film has in spades. But, often, it’s unclear whether what we’re being shown is meant to be funny or eerie. To wit: when Sheila enters a boutique to buy the cursed red dress, she finds the store staffed by obviously strange, obviously witch-like sales assistants. The movie doesn’t cue us as to whether we should find this funny or creepy. We’re left shifting uneasily in our seats, which I think is the point.
Director Peter Strickland has authored a film both vintage and fresh, familiar yet startling — maybe even enough to rejuvenate the world of horror at large. There’s no need to put on yet another movie about exorcisms and evil dolls when something as bizarre and unsettling as “In Fabric” is lurking around.
4.5/5
