Parents' Guide to In Fabric

Inspired by Italian and English horror movies of the 1960s and '70s, this surreal nightmare offers inspired imagery and unsettling sound design, but it may run a little too long to sustain its spell. Written and directed by Peter Strickland (Berberian Sound Studio, The Duke of Burgundy), In Fabric is quite unlike, say, the 2018 remake of Suspiria in that it seems to get inside the giallo and horror genres, rather than simply paying homage to them. This film is less interested in providing simple scares than it is in depicting the creeping logic of a nightmare. (Several scenes are devoted to characters actually describing their own creepy nightmares.)

It's an impressive achievement in tactile, intuitive filmmaking, finding a mesmerizing flow that rises above a typical monster movie. Yet In Fabric slips a little in its second half. Jean-Baptiste is so good and so genuine in the first half that when things switch over to the almost comically mismatched couple -- meek, turkeylike Reg and bossy, chatty Babs (Hayley Squires) -- the movie begins to feel more like a parody. Strickland has enough visual and aural themes to finally sew things together in a satisfying way, but the switch leaves the second half somewhat ill-fitting. If only someone could have taken the material in a little bit, this movie could have been even more shockingly satisfying.