The charges of “Blasphemy!” are likely to come fast and furious for Lotfy Nathan’s supernatural horror film revolving around the life of the teenage Jesus. Based on the apocryphal “Infancy Gospel of Thomas” (which I confess I haven’t read), the film strains mightily for a seriousness that it never deserves. I mean, when you cast Nicolas Cage as “The Carpenter” and FKA Twigs as “The Mother,” you’re already kind of throwing in the towel.
Despite its handsome production values and an arresting performance by Isla Johnston (The Queen’s Gambit) as “The Stranger,” who turns out to be, wait for it, Satan, The Carpenter’s Son will please neither the faithful nor those looking for a more traditional fright film in which the Devil makes an appearance.
Set largely in “Anno Domini 15,” the story takes place in Roman-era Egypt, where Joseph and Mary (let’s not be coy about this) are going about their daily lives while being understandably protective of their 15-year-old son Jesus (Noah Jupe, reuniting with Twigs after Honey Boy). So Joseph gets understandably perturbed when his son begins hanging out with a mysterious stranger with haunting eyes.
“I play games all day. Will you play with me?” the stranger asks Jesus, which provides a subtle clue that he may be up to no good. Not to mention his propensity for playing with scorpions.
Soon enough, Jesus finds himself increasingly drawn to the stranger, much to his father’s consternation. “My faith has become a broken crutch!” Joseph exclaims, in the way that only Nicolas Cage can. The villagers are equally upset, becoming convinced that the carpenter’s son and his new friend are evil spirits. A reasonable assumption, considering that highly aggressive snakes are starting to emanate from people’s mouths. Meanwhile, Jesus understandably begins to suffer daddy issues: “Tell me who my father is!” he implores the stranger.
Writer-director Nathan (12 O’Clock Boys), who grew up in the Coptic Orthodox Church, seems to be sincere in his attempt to present a Biblical narrative from a very different perspective. The Carpenter’s Son is nothing if not solemn, presented with all the gravitas of a ‘50s-era religious epic as if directed by John Carpenter. The performers are equally committed, although Cage immediately sends out campy vibes. Not so much from his performance, which is relatively restrained, but his mere presence. That’s simply what happens when you cast the actor who starred in Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance and Mandy as Joseph.
Since Twigs and Jupe have no such cinematic baggage, they fare much better. But the real standout is Johnston, whose eyes are so mesmerizing that it’s easy to see why Jesus falls under the stranger’s spell. The actress, who will soon be playing the lead role in Baz Luhrmann’s upcoming Joan of Arc pic, has such a compelling screen presence that stardom seems all but assured. Add to that the fact that she can deliver lines like “I am the accuser of light…I am the adversary” with utter conviction and you can see she’s going places.
For all its visual stylishness, The Carpenter’s Son feels like such an essentially misconceived project that it seems destined for future cult status, with audiences at midnight screenings shouting out the more outrageous lines in unison with the actors. Which may not be what the filmmaker intended, but sounds like a lot of fun.
After five years in the Olympic Tower, this hub for artists merging X.R., A.I. and performance is set to move to Tribeca. Photo by Ed Lefkowicz.
Launched in 2020 by the Onassis Foundation and NEW INC, the incubator of the New Museum, Onassis ONX Studio has evolved into one of New York’s leading hubs for artists working at the intersection of extended reality (X.R.), A.I. and performance. Closely connected to Onassis Stegi in Athens, the two organizations form a dynamic international channel for creative exchange within the broader Onassis Foundation ecosystem. In New York, Onassis ONX provides an accessible acceleration space for ambitious productions, while at Onassis Stegi—founded in 2010—the focus is on education and professional development, nurturing a rapidly expanding arts-and-technology scene. Rooted in Greece’s long tradition of theater and dramaturgy, this has inspired compelling intersections of theater, dance and technology.
To mark its fifth anniversary, Onassis ONX has announced its relocation from its original venue in the Olympic Tower on Fifth Avenue, just above the Onassis Foundation’s U.S. headquarters, to an expanded 6,000-square-foot space in the heart of Tribeca at 390 Broadway, which also houses PPOW and Matthew Brown Gallery. Set to open in January, the new facility will continue to operate as a hybrid residency, research lab and production studio, offering additional space for exhibitions and public programming that extend the reach of the work developed within the organization.
The new studio includes a motion-capture stage twice the size of the previous one, a three-wall seamless projection room designed for museum-scale installations and an expanded sound studio—four times larger than the original—equipped with a high-fidelity system for immersive sonic environments. It also features enhanced computational infrastructure, including a new server array designed to support A.I. and generative media.
Onassis ONX is the Onassis Foundation’s global platform for digital culture, championing artists who push the boundaries of new media through the creation, exhibition and circulation of immersive, technology-driven works. Photo: Mikhail Mishin
“It’s been amazing to see how much interest, focus and support for art and technology has expanded in New York City and around the world,” Jazia Hammoudi, program director of Onassis ONX, told Observer ahead of the announcement. “It’s been a long journey for many of us, but witnessing this evolution now feels incredibly rewarding.”
Created as an arm of Onassis Culture—the cultural branch of Greece’s leading philanthropic organization, which has championed “aid, progress and development” since 1975—ONX quickly became central to the foundation’s mission as a cultural innovator and supporter of contemporary art. From the outset, the foundation has operated from a deeply humanist perspective, Hammoudi explained. “It’s an organization that takes its lead from artists rather than dictating from the top down, continually looking to understand what’s actually happening across the cultural and intellectual landscape. It’s about paying close attention to what artists and audiences are thinking about, interested in and in need of. That same responsiveness to artistic and technological innovation is what inspired the foundation’s expansion in both New York and Athens.”
At its core, ONX is first and foremost an accelerator. Its foundation lies in the production space, tools and technical consultation it provides—but beyond that, it functions as an aesthetic and intellectual incubator. “We offer extensive creative consultation and curatorial support to artists, so they’re not only producing work here but also developing its conceptual and public trajectory,” Hammoudi added. “An artist can come to ONX, build their work and we’ll help them find the right platform for it—whether that’s a festival, an exhibition within our own programs in New York or Athens, or through one of our partner institutions.” Onassis ONX also helps artists secure additional funding, either through internal seed grants and commissions or through its global network of partners.
“Tribeca Immersive” is the Tribeca Festival section co-produced by Onassis ONX. AI Ego | Photographer: Mikhail Mishin
Since its founding, ONX has supported an impressive roster of artists and collectives redefining the intersection of performance and technology, including LaJuné McMillian, Peter Burr, Stephanie Dinkins, Sutu (Stuart Campbell) and Jayson Musson. Projects developed at ONX often blur the boundaries between theater, gaming environments, installation and live performance—echoing the Onassis Foundation’s broader mission to explore the future of culture and human experience through technology.
“Our goal is to provide holistic support for artists working in new media because we recognize that many traditional museums and cultural institutions weren’t designed to meet their needs,” Hammoudi said. “Our work is twofold: to provide artists with the resources and infrastructure they need and to help institutions evolve into what 21st-century creativity actually looks like.”
ONX currently supports about 85 member artists worldwide who have full access to production facilities, seed grants, funding opportunities, internal open calls and ongoing staff consultation. This membership model ensures long-term, sustained support for artists working in new media. “We know that this kind of work takes time—and often requires many different minds and kinds of intelligence to bring to completion,” Hammoudi explained. “As advocates and field builders, we see these ongoing relationships with artists as essential to the growth and vitality of the field itself.”
The new space will also enable the organization to deepen and expand its global partnerships. As part of its mission as a field builder, Onassis ONX collaborates with international partners to develop residencies, exchange programs, fellowships, exhibitions, funding initiatives and distribution channels.
Onassis ONX supports artists and creative teams through capacity-building programs, research and incubation initiatives, acceleration services, seed funding, exhibitions, fellowships and collaborative partnerships The Power Loom | Photographer: Mikhail Mishin
For example, Onassis ONX is a partner on Lincoln Center’s Collider Fellowship, runs a residency exchange with MIT’s Open Documentary Lab and maintains a core partnership with NEW INC, where artists track work within the ONX space. Looking ahead, Hammoudi said the goal is to continue expanding these partnerships to support a growing cohort of artists. “It’s important for us to maintain a deep, ongoing connection with our 85 member artists while also creating ways to offer short-term, project-based support to those who come to us with a specific challenge or need. This expansion allows us to do both.”
Notions of hybrid identity beyond biological, mythological and digital limits
Inaugurating Onassis ONX’s new space will be “TECHNE: Homecoming,” an exhibition uniting six visionary artists whose multimedia installations explore hybrid identity shaped through biological, mythological and digital kinships. “The show reflects our belief that technology can deepen the ways we connect—with one another, with our histories and with the stories we choose to tell about the future,” Hammoudi said.
The artist lineup embodies the kind of interdisciplinary, cross-knowledge collaboration the foundation has long supported, featuring works that range from Andrew Thomas Huang’s two-channel video installation and sculptural environment—rooted in a Buddhist folktale and informed by his collaborations with Björk and FKA Twigs—to Tamiko Thiel’s Atmos Sphaerae, a video installation tracing Earth’s atmospheric evolution from primordial void to Anthropocene through a poetic translation of molecular data into visual form that collapses conventional timescales. Meanwhile, Damara Inglês’s “phygital” installation reimagines the afterlife of Queen Nzinga of Angola through the lens of Cyber-Kimbandism, merging Bantu cosmology, A.I. and 3D design to position technology as both a spiritual conduit for ancestral connection and a tool of anti-colonial resistance.
Miriam Simun, Contact Zone (Level 2), 2024. Courtesy of the artist and Onassis ONX
In a similar spirit, Natalia Manta’s looping animations, digital tombs and hybrid sculptures oscillate between the archaeological and the alien, provoking transhistorical reflections on human time across geographies and collective memory. Sister Sylvester presents Drinking Brecht, an experimental work of automated theater and performance-as-installation that functions as a Marxist-feminist laboratory. Finally, Miriam Simun’s generative three-channel projection Contact Zone Level 2 brings the Swiss Alps into collision with the artist’s own intestines beneath an A.I.’s gaze, continuously reconfiguring to explore the symbiosis between organic and artificial life—a visionary intersection of nature, technology and consciousness beyond human perception. “Technology becomes the mediator for this imagining, allowing a hybrid being—a new chimera—to emerge between nature and self. It’s a wild and deeply thought-provoking work,” Hammoudi said.
In each case, technology enables artists to construct more expansive worlds around their practice, extending the reach of their bodies and presence while dissolving the traditional genre boundaries that once defined art-making. “Those old taxonomies—this artist does that, that one does this—are becoming almost irrelevant,” Hammoudi noted, emphasizing that many of these works use digital tools not as spectacle but as instruments for expanding how we sense, perceive and experience reality—or move beyond its human limits.
An installation view of Sister Sylvester‘s Drinking Brecht (2024). Courtesy of the artist and Onassis ONX.
The exhibition will be part of the annual Under the Radar Festival, which this year includes two Onassis ONX performances—We Have No Need of Other Worlds (We Need Mirrors) by Graham Sack and ¡Harken! by Modesto Flako Jimenez—as well as MAMI, a mainstage production conceived and directed by Mario Banushi and commissioned by Onassis Stegi. Together, these works underscore the foundation’s multifaceted support for artists working at the intersection of performance and new technology—an ever-expanding field as creators increasingly experiment with digital embodiment, exploring performance, the shifting boundaries between analog and digital and what it means for the body to exist in real time and space within contemporary digital culture.
Balancing studio production and public programming
Looking ahead, Onassis ONX will continue to balance its mission of providing a dedicated workspace for artists with a growing commitment to public engagement. Beginning in 2026, ONX will host two in-studio exhibitions each year—one in January and another in the fall—along with quarterly public programs developed in collaboration with organizations such as NEW INC, Pioneer Works, Rhizome and Lincoln Center. The foundation also plans to continue its major annual off-site exhibition each June, following last year’s presentation at Tribeca Immersive. “This model allows us to keep the studio primarily a development space while maintaining a consistent public presence through exhibitions and thought-leadership events announced on our website and newsletter,” Hammoudi said.
The move from Midtown to Tribeca doubles the studio’s square footage and puts Onassis ONX at the center of downtown New York’s dynamic contemporary scene. There Goes Nikki | Photographer: Mikhail Mishin
In Athens, the focus remains educational, with ongoing incubation programs such as ONX Futures and the annual A.I. Summer School each July. The Athens space will also present an ONX showcase in May and contribute to the foundation’s broader cultural calendar, which includes the Borderline Festival in April. The foundation also produces Plásmata, its large-scale digital art biennial in Pedion tou Areos Park. Held every two years, it is one of the few outdoor digital art biennials in the world, combining large-scale installations, performances and music with works by both Greek and international artists, including recent participants such as John Fitzgerald, Jiabao Li, William Kentridge and Johan Bourgeois.
Ultimately, ONX’s mission—across both New York and Athens—is to expand the understanding of art and technology not only as mediums but as frameworks for examining how we live today. As traditional genres continue to dissolve, the foundation remains committed to supporting artists working at these frontiers, where art and life increasingly intersect.
“TECHNE: Homecoming” is presented as part of Under the Radar Festival, which this year includes two Onassis ONX performances and one mainstage production commissioned and produced by Onassis Stegi. Photo by Ed Lefkowicz
The psychological horror movie The Carpenter’s Son features a fascinating perspective about The Carpenter (Nicolas Cage), The Mother (FKA Twigs), and their young son The Boy (Noah Jupe) targeted by supernatural forces in Egypt. I don’t believe their names were ever spoken in the film, but there’s no beating around the bush here; this is a horror adaptation of Saint Joseph, Mary, and their son Jesus.
Some will watch The Carpenter’s Son and see it as a visually arresting genre-fied piece of biblical fanfiction. Others will see the film as sacrilege (some already do). I just saw a horror movie without enough ideas or tension to be truly disturbing. I have my religious background, but going into this movie objectively, this is an interesting idea. A horror movie about Jesus, Mary, and Joseph is risky, and the result is a movie that I found to be very peculiar. There’s something so strange about watching these famed religious figures from thousands of years ago sharing the screen with actors making guttural noises straight out of a late 20th/early 21st century horror movie.
Sometimes, you watch a movie and you just wonder who it was made for. My best guess is that The Carpenter’s Son was made for people who like horror movies. I like horror movies, and I don’t think the film managed to hook me from a scare standpoint. But for those who are steadfast in their religious beliefs, the idea of making a horror movie using these figures is offensive to them. Now, what about atheists who believe the Bible is fictional anyway? I don’t see them liking this movie either. Early on, Jesus is sleepwalking and having dreams/visions of people being crucified, which feels like a strange bit of on-the-nose foreshadowing for his own eventual fate. But also, are we really getting another movie where Jesus, widely believed to be a Middle Eastern Jewish man, is white?
With the number of toes The Carpenter’s Son steps on, this is genuinely a surprising, odd little movie. It doesn’t feel like writer/director Lotfy Nathan is aiming to be a provocative filmmaker. I never got the impression that he was aiming to make anyone angry with this film. It feels like he had an idea to take Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, and make a horror movie surrounding these real figures. It’s a bold idea, and I can applaud his ambition, but making a classic genre horror movie with conventional scares is always a risk when you’re portraying real people. Lord knows we never needed multiple horror films about the murder of Sharon Tate, but we do.
And now, you have actors playing Joseph, Mary, and Jesus. You have scenes where Jesus is learning that he has the power to heal others with his touch (perhaps the best scene in the film is when he performs his miracle on a grasshopper). It’s all strange, especially when we’re watching “body horror” scenes within this movie. There’s something so off about the juxtaposition of the filmmaking with the subject matter that just never made sense to me.
Beyond all of that, the pacing can be a little slow. Strange, horrifying things are happening, and you’re waiting for a concrete threat to arrive. It takes a while, and in the meantime, you’re watching people suffer at the hands of these horrific acts of violence. The Carpenter’s Son revels in the disturbing imagery of people strung up in chains and crosses, brutally bloodied and beaten. While many horror movies thrive when leaning into disturbing ideas, you can get to a point where you’re watching this and you’re just not enjoying yourself anymore.
How are the performances? Well, Nicolas Cage has always been an enigmatic performer. People like to joke about the moments in his roles where he screams. He even took a shot at himself on SNL once, where he mentions that all his dialogue is either whispered or screamed. That kind of applies to this role, but he really is an incredible performer who can emote a lot with his eyes and sell many emotions. His performance as Joseph requires that, and he delivers. Jupe gives a good performance as Jesus, not playing him as the Christ figure many are familiar with, but as a young man learning about himself.
FKA Twigs is the weakest link in this cast. She has the least experience in acting compared to her co-stars, and you can tell. She’s very wooden for the majority of the movie. It’s a contrast to Cage, because her facial expressions don’t communicate much. There’s only one scene where she gets to really show emotion, but beyond that, there isn’t much to her performance.
By the end of The Carpenter’s Son, everything feels a bit vague. We do learn who the ultimate antagonist is (three guesses who), but it just doesn’t add up to anything more than a few pieces of disturbing imagery, so it’s not a movie that I can recommend to devout religious people, loud-and-proud infidels, or even fans of good horror.
SCORE: 3/10
As ComingSoon’s review policy explains, a score of 3 equates to “Bad.” Due to significant issues, this media feels like a chore to take in.
Disclosure: ComingSoon attended a press screening for our The Carpenter’s Son review.
As FKA Twigs prepares us for the EusexuaAfterglow—a.k.a. the title of not her deluxe version of Eusexua, but a “sequel album” to it—she’s given the gift of “Cheap Hotel,” the first single from said record. Co-produced by Twigs, Joy Henson, Manni Dee, Petra Levitt and Lilbubblegum, the sound of the track has all the hallmarks of the early 2010s, particularly in terms of FKA Twigs’ Grimes-esque vocals. We’re talking Visions-era Grimes (in other words, well before Elon destroyed her). Then there is the element of the Spring Breakers Soundtrack to the sound, not just musically, but also with the contribution of warped-sounding male vocals that boast, “Lord on my denim, designer work wear/No pausing with these senses, I’m just tryna splurge here” (and yes, it’s also very 2010s not to mention additional vocals as an official feature [see also: Flo Rida’s “Right Round” [granted, a single from 2009], which didn’t list Kesha as the featured artist at the time when it came out).
To capture the trippy, gritty feeling of the track, Twigs once again tapped Jordan Hemingway (who also happens to her boyfriend) to direct the video (indeed, they co-directed and co-wrote it together). And, although the song itself is three minutes and thirty-one seconds, the video is practically a short film length, clocking in at seven minutes and six seconds. Opening with a few shots of the “cheap motel” in question, Hemingway then cuts to a scene of a man walking on the side of the highway as he tries to call Twigs’ phone, leaving a message demanding, “Yo, where you at yo? For real. You got me out here in the middle of nowhere, I don’t know where I’m at… This is gettin’ crazy now, come on, like…” Meanwhile, Twigs and a friend of hers roll up to the Royal Motel, likely the one in oh so glamorous Secaucus, New Jersey (though, admittedly, the aesthetic of the town has some decided “LA vibes”—this being perhaps a testament to how all the U.S. looks like a giant freeway with some strip malls plopped down here and there).
As Twigs’ friend talks about how “he wasn’t even that cute,” the viewer can infer she’s alluding to the lost dude attempting to track Twigs down in the middle of nowhere (a.k.a. New Jersey). Clearly trying to continue the party/club they were at in the light of day, Twigs and her friend rock-paper-scissor for who has to go in and buy a room “for the night” (though it’s day) with the presumably kifed wallet containing the necessary credit card to do so. Though Twigs’ friend says before going, “I bet you that motherfucker’s card declined.” Fortunately for Twigs and the many other people she invites into the room, that doesn’t turn out to be the case. And from there, the title card, in all its purplish cursive font glory, establishes “Cheap Hotel” as the name of this “little movie.” One that very much possesses the style of Sean Baker—with the narrative and setting itself being almost like a mash-up of Tangerine and The Florida Project.
Once inside the room, it doesn’t take long for a flood of people to show up and keep the party going from the night/morning that has now turned into broad daylight. But Twigs clearly wants to have her own after-after-after-after party as she sings, “Do you wanna bring a friend?/To the cheap hotel right behind the club/In Room 20 or 24/Call me when you’re outside, endless summertime/At the mini bar, bring your credit card/We’ll go all night.” And all day.
Bopping along to the music she’s put on in their cheap hotel room (even though the average price at the Royal Motel is about a hundred and fifty dollars a night—so yeah, it’s a “cheap” motel by 2025 standards), Twigs ignores the various missed calls and text messages from “Hot Guy 3″ (as she’s chosen to label him in her contacts). Having way too much fun/generally too blissed out on drugs and alcohol to care, Twigs keeps dancing while various yellow-toned captions, designed to serve as “thought bubbles,” as it were, let the viewer know what each “guest” is saying. For example, “Has anyone seen my vape?”
Twigs occasionally checks her phone to listen to the latest message from Hot Guy 3 demanding to know where she is (and also where his “shit” is, for that matter—which plausibly means his wallet). In another instance, Twigs pauses the music to go outside and get a drink from the vending machine, at which time she encounters a very Tangerine-esque character that gets immediately uppity at the sight of her, asking, “The fuck you doin’ in my hood, babe?” Twigs ignores the question, continuing to go about her business before sauntering back into the room (though she does briefly threaten to spray her drink in the antagonizer’s face, prompting the latter to unleash another invective).
Back inside the room, which seems even more like another world trapped in the nighttime/some alternate universe now that we’ve seen Twigs go back into the day for a hot minute, she turns her music back on. Then, Hemingway intercuts scenes of her outside with the crew that was antagonizing her with scenes of her inside the room. This before Hot Guy 3 finally does arrive at the place, thinking that maybe he’s at last found the light at the end of the tunnel. But no, not only does everyone inside the room freeze so that they can be extra quiet and make him believe no one’s in there, but when he does open the door, he finds something quite unexpected. And this is where the unforeseen David Lynch-meets-David Cronenberg influence comes in (even though, up until this point, it was all Baker), with Twigs putting someone else’s eyeball on her face just as he enters the room. For it seems as though she’s “absorbed” everyone into her own body, become like a composite of all the revelers.
In a sense, this “absorption” vaguely achieves something she had said in one of the captions just before Hot Guy 3 burst in: “I wish I could be every me at once.” Perhaps that’s part of why she’s sought to combine Eusexua with Eusexua Afterglow as “companion pieces,” for they’re inevitably variations on the same theme. And whereas her videos for the Eusexua era all ended with, “Eusexua is a practice, Eusexua is a state of being, Eusexua is the pinnacle of human experience,” the ones for Eusexua Afterglow now just end simply with the question, “Searching for an afterglow?” And whether you were or not, it’s surely been found in “Cheap Hotel.”
FKA twigs is going to be releasing more new music very soon. The singer just finished her tour in support of Eusexua with a performance at Lowlands, and she told the crowd at the Dutch festival about a project called Eusexua Afterglow. “I am full and abundant and ready to give birth, FKA twigs said. “Her name is Afterglow, and my labor shall commence next month.” Representatives for FKA twigs confirmed to Pitchfork that Eusexua Afterglow is “not a deluxe version, but rather a whole new album.”
FKA twigs released Eusexua in January. She more recently shared the single “Perfectly.”
Madonna as the titular character in Desperately Seeking Susan once said, “Good going, stranger.” It seemed, in its odd way, to presage a song of hers that would come out fourteen years later: “Beautiful Stranger.” While it was the lead single for a less than elegant movie, Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me, Madonna’s message on the track (which sounded like a holdover from the Ray of Light era, but was actually recorded the same year it was released, 1999) captures a timeless message: love at first sight. Or, at the bare minimum, lust at first sight. The thrill of initial attraction that can only come from not actually knowing someone. From being able to project all of your fantasies and expectations onto them. And yes, this is usually based on looks alone as opposed to “energy radiated.”
At the time, Madonna’s inspiration for the song was reported to be Andy Bird, a British “regular person” posing as a “filmmaker” (which was a loose way of saying unemployed). Obviously, he was Guy Ritchie 1.0, a set of training wheels before Madonna unearthed a more legitimate Brit in the world of film. Nonetheless, you didn’t see Madonna being inspired enough by Ritchie’s looks to write such a song about him (instead, he got “Push”). Indeed, Bird typified the phrase “tall, dark and handsome” or, even better for Madonna’s songwriting purposes, “tall, dark stranger” (this being a common vague description for fortune tellers to assure, “You will meet a tall, dark stranger” [a cliché that Woody Allen turned into a title for one of his “late era,” particularly bad movies]).
And yet, despite the attraction she feels for this stranger, Madonna knows that she’ll pay the piper later if she ignores her instincts about him being fundamentally dangerous. For, as it used to be said before the arrival of apps like Uber and Airbnb: “Stranger danger.” What’s more, some of Madonna’s most formative years were at the height of AIDS in the 1980s, when sex with strangers suddenly started to feel more dangerous than ever (regardless of being gay or not). This fear of the risk that came with “casual sex” (the latter practice seeming to reach a crescendo in the late 70s) is also inherent in Madonna’s 1993 video for “Bad Girl,” which riffs on the premise of Richard Brooks’ 1977 movie, Looking For Mr. Goodbar. Itself a cautionary tale of what can happen when one falls down the rabbit hole of meeting beautiful strangers almost every night (especially as a woman). And going home with them.
With FKA Twigs’ latest single, “Perfect Stranger,” it’s difficult not to recall Madonna’s 1999 song also highlighting the agonies and ecstasies of encountering someone new (for sexual or romantic purposes, needless to say). Except that, in Twigs’ case, there seems to be no drawback whatsoever to a perfect/beautiful stranger. In fact, throughout the song, she riddles off all the ways in which keeping someone at arm’s length skillfully enough to remain a stranger is the hottest thing since latex. So it is that she sings, “You’re perfect, baby/My perfect stranger/You’re beautiful, you’re worth it/You’re the best, and you deserve it/You’re a stranger, so you’re perfect/I love the danger/You’re the perfect stranger.”
In another instance of ostensible Madonna homage, Twigs ruminates at one point during the outro, “What is this human nature?/No answer, I’m infatuated.” Madonna’s own song, “Human Nature,” also has a video punctuated by Madonna and her backup dancers in “boxes” (just as the “Perfect Stranger” video is characterized by “box rooms”). Not to mention the same S&M aesthetic that Twigs wields during one particular “vignette” from the Jordan Hemingway-directed video.
In contrast to Twigs’ lustiness in the song, Madonna approaches her stranger (and strangers in general) with much more cautious arousal. Which is why she self-deprecatingly says, “If I’m smart, then I’ll run away/But I’m not, so I guess I’ll stay.” She also notes that one has to have a predilection for the dangerous (as Twigs does) in order to give in fully to an attraction to a perfect/beautiful stranger, singing, “You’re some kind of beautiful stranger/You could be good for me/I have a taste for danger.” If one doesn’t have that taste, however, things could get dicey. From Madonna’s perspective, anyway.
As far as Twigs is concerned though, “That’s okay with me/To live my life with some mystery/Please don’t say that I must know/And that’s alright, I say/We’re all getting through this our own way/I’d rather know nothing than all the lies/Just give me the person you are tonight.” Madonna, conversely, seems to want her expectations of the perfect/beautiful stranger to eventually pan out in some way once the two get to know one another more fully. Even if more than part of her expects to be disappointed…if the following lyric is anything to go by: “I looked into your eyes/And my world came tumblin’ down/You’re the devil in disguise/That’s why I’m singin’ this song to you.”
But the reason Twigs is singing her song to her perfect stranger is to emphasize that disappointment can never come if you never truly get to know someone. Thus, the dual definition of “perfect stranger” to mean, on the one hand, simply “a total stranger” and, on the other, someone being “perfect” solely because they are a stranger, and one therefore doesn’t have any awareness of their “defects” yet. It’s also interesting to hear Twigs’ predilection for incorporating the sound of 90s house and dance music into the production, whereas Madonna’s song, actually made in the 90s, is deliberately intended to be more sonically reminiscent of music from the 60s. While this might have been because it was made for the Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me Soundtrack, there’s also another element at play: the idea that meeting a stranger in the 60s—especially the late 60s—was infused with just as much of a sense of danger as it was titillation, what with Cold War paranoia besetting everyone.
In the here and now, Twigs’ chooses to ignore all the paranoia associated with the present (from catfishing to being scammed in some other egregious way) and play up the sheer romance of encountering a stranger, particularly on the dance floor. The not knowing is what makes it sexy rather than scary (“I don’t wanna have the anxiety/Please don’t say so I won’t know”). And besides that, “What we don’t know will never hurt.” Granted, it didn’t hurt Twigs to “meet” (a.k.a. invite) former stranger Madonna and “powwow” with her at the Central Saint Martins BA fashion graduation show back in 2022. Surely, that meeting of the minds might have helped with the genesis of “Perfect Stranger,” if Twigs happened to brush up on M’s back catalogue afterward. Not that she wasn’t already pole dancing to “I’d Rather Be Your Lover” and incorporating “Vogue” into live versions of “Give Up” well before the fashion show came along.
The theme of projection in romance seems to be trending at the moment. At least if one takes Dua Lipa’s “Illusion,” Todd Phillips’ Joker: Folie à Deux and, now, FKA Twigs’ “Perfect Stranger” as signs o’ the times. Granted, “Perfect Stranger,” the latest single from Eusexua (following up the song of the same name) is likely to be far more warmly received than the sequel to Joker, even if both pop culture offerings focus on how projecting an idea of who someone is onto them without really knowing who they are is the key to stoking “romantic feeling.” Because once you find out more, you’re certain to lose the same level of fervor you had when you could envision your “crush” to be exactly who you thought they were/wanted them to be (just ask Lady Gaga’s version of Harley Quinn a.k.a. “Lee Quinzel”).
Reteaming with director Jordan Hemingway (who also directed “Eusexua”) for the video, Twigs lays out that premise by offering up a series of imagined scenarios with different people in various “box rooms” (which are eventually presented as said “boxes” via the pan out method, sort of like the presentation of the rooms in the “dollhouse” [that turns out to be inside of a snow globe, for added Black Mirror effect] of Taylor Swift’s “Lover” video). In the first room, she’s on her own, sporting what will now forever be known as the “eusexua haircut” when fans look back on this era. It is in this state of aloneness that she can let her projections run wild, and this is conveyed by the camera panning down to reveal the first “fantasy”: Twigs loving up on some similar-looking woman (at least in terms of having a thin frame) as both wear next to nothing. After all, you can’t spell “eusexua” without “sex.”
At the start of the song, Twigs already announced, “I don’t know the name of the town you’re from [in contrast to Lana Del Rey singing, “I come from a small town, how ‘bout you?” on “Let Me Love You Like A Woman”]/Your star sign or the school you failed/I don’t know and I don’t care.” The reason she doesn’t care, obviously, is because to know anything concrete about a person is to have them demystified. “Debunked,” as it were. And since Eusexua is an album inspired by the grimy, no-holds-barred, no-inhibitions-left dance music that Twigs heard while going to various underground clubs in Prague (while filming The Crow, the only movie more condemned than Joker: Folie à Deux this year), the sound and motif of “Perfect Stranger” caters to one’s sentiments while experiencing a night out in this type of environment.
Drenched in the sweaty debauchery of the dance floor, it’s no wonder Twigs also insists, “I’d rather know nothing than all the lies/Just give me the person you are tonight.” As mentioned above, this smacks of Dua Lipa’s “Illusion,” during which she sings, “Yeah, I just wanna dance with the illusion.” Being that both British chanteuses favor music tailored to “the clerb” (Charli XCX isn’t the only one), it’s to be expected that some of their lyrical themes would align. And this year, each prefers dancing with their illusions/projections of someone.
The camera pans sideways next to reveal a version of FKA Twigs cooking in the kitchen (albeit ineptly). Even though this scene doesn’t coincide with the line, “I don’t know the food that’s your favorite now/Your work or what you’re working around/I don’t know and I don’t care/And that’s okay with me/To live my life with some mystery/Please don’t say that I must know.” In point of fact, Twigs’ entire thesis statement on this song is in direct contrast to the overexposed nature of living in the internet-fueled world of today, where no mystery at all is left about what a person is like. Or rather, what the image they want to project is like. Maybe that’s why Twigs goes for a 90s feel with the song’s production (courtesy of Koreless, Stargate, Ojivolta and Twigs herself) in addition to the aesthetic of the video, which could, at times, double as a CK One commercial with all its “slick” panning.
Twigs then gets more psychological by presenting a twin self in the same room with her, almost as though to subliminally indicate that perhaps by not fully knowing herself, she can keep thriving and surviving. Either that, or she’s determined to promote the notion of sologamy through cloning. But that doesn’t appear to be the case in another “box room scenario” wherein FKA is the mother to a baby, her husband or baby daddy sitting solemnly behind her as he gives her what looks like a really bad massage whilst she rocks the child in her arms (in truth, it looks like something out of a 90s Janet Jackson video). The camera then pans horizontally back over to the first pair of “perfect strangers” we were introduced to (Twigs and the woman who has the same thin frame she does) before panning down to reveal a new “box room” altogether. This one being decidedly S&M-centric.
Considering Twigs used this particular scene as a teaser for the video, it’s likely among her favorites. And why wouldn’t it be? She gets to wear scanty leather lingerie while walking on a mini treadmill, of sorts (clearly, Charli brought the treadmill back with the “360” video), as her dom gives her a stinging spanking with a riding crop. At which point she pronounces, “I love the danger/You’re the perfect stranger.” Quite the opposite of the millennial mantra, “Stranger = danger.”
The camera pans down once more to unveil the final “box room” setup: Twigs in an orgiastic, tribal-themed sort of scenario. Writhing in ecstasy amid her final projection, the end of the video shows all of the “box rooms” stacked atop each other and side-by-side (again, it makes for the aforementioned “Lover” dollhouse effect). All of these perfect strangers prompting Twigs to announce, “Oh, we can make it work/What we don’t know will never hurt/‘Cause you’re a stranger, so you’re perfect.” That is, until you get to know said stranger.
In the annals of “office music videos,” there are very few. In the recent past, there have been the likes of Britney Spears’ “Womanizer” and Fifth Harmony’s “Worth It,” but these played with the idea of “office aesthetics” more than trying to “make a statement” about office work and its soul-crushing nature. And, in its way, that’s what FKA Twigs’ music video for her eponymous first single from Eusexua does. Except that it also incorporates the kind of message that Avicii and Nicky Romero’s 2012 hit, “I Could Be The One,” does in its own music video, where an office worker (played by Inessa Frantowski) endures the daily drudgery of her life—dominated mostly by the banal tasks she’s “required” to do for eight hours a day—until she gets the wake-up call to abandon it entirely (resulting in an ironically tragic denouement).
In a similar fashion, we see a frantic FKA Twigs running into the generic office where she works at the outset of the Jordan Hemingway-directed “Eusexua.” Clearly, she’s dangerously tardy and doesn’t want to get caught. “You’re late,” the drag queen-esque co-worker who looks like Eartheater tells Twigs as she scurries into the fluorescently-lit space (and maybe it is Eartheater—after all, “Alexandra Drewchin” has a co-songwriting and co-producer credit on the track). Plopping down in her seat and taking off her glasses, Twigs barely has time to get her bearings before the boss man materializes to demand, “Have you got a second?” Reluctantly, Twigs says, “Yeah.” “Have you seen the new comments?” “I…haven’t. Were they on GroupSpace?” “No, TeamZone Chat.” Automatically, Twigs seems to be trolling the ridiculous names that get used in a corporate setting, all under the guise of “improving communication.”
Frantic to accommodate her boss, Twigs tries to log in on her computer to see what’s what, only to keep getting an error message that makes checking her latest emails impossible. Meanwhile, her boss drones on, “We’re phasing out GroupSpace. Everything’s on TeamZone now.” “I’m really sorry.” “It’s fine. Loads have missed it. That’s why I’m standing here physically right now.” Before she can keep engaging in this banal conversation, the phone on her desk rings. Telling her boss “one second,” she answers it, ostensibly receiving some sort of hypnotic message that leads her into a state of what she calls “eusexua.” This being a term Twigs created to describe the feeling of transcending time, space and your body when you find yourself in a euphoric moment that can turn into hours passing without realizing it (this inspired by her clubbing period in Prague while filming The Crow—disastrous for her acting career, but great for continuing to spur her musical one). Indeed, that definition and the events that take place also recall Avicii’s video for “Levels” (he obviously understood how soul-sucking office [non-]life was, despite enduring the different kind of soul-sucking lifestyle entailed by being a world-famous DJ).
And, evidently, whoever is calling her wants her to remember what that feeling is after she’s so clearly gone numb as a result of spending most of her time in an office setting (and for a company called “CroneCorp” no less). Her boss initially regards her with a strange look at the sight of her own bizarre expression while she listens to whatever is on the other side of the phone (an alien race seeking to remind humans that they’re wasting their potential on “busy work” for the sake of pay?). But then, he, too, is overtaken by eusexua, along with the rest of the office as they get into formation to perform what is sure to become among Twigs’ most iconic choreography—courtesy of Zoi Tatopoulos, “best known for her extraterrestrial approach to creative direction and movement choreography” (so maybe that alien theory holds weight). The accompanying Janet Jackson-y backbeat does not yet let us hear the actual song. Instead, we’re given a preview of “Drums of Death,” which is to be the fourth track on Eusexua. Thus, as though Twigs is speaking from the “head alien” perspective, we hear her voice command, “Listen, girl, drop your skin to the floor/Let your clothes body talk/Shed your skin/Rip your shirt/Flesh be torn/Feel hot, feel hard, feel heavy/Fuck who you want/Baby girl, do it just for fun.”
It is after this mantra that everyone in the office really has shed their “skin” (a.k.a. work clothes) in favor of wearing solely their skivvies. The lyrics to “Drums of Death” then continue to play as Twigs asks, “Hello, what you like?/Do you wanna meet later?/Relax and ease your mind ‘cause you work so much/I know what you like, and you’re my main character/I’m here anytime, you can call me up.” And with the shedding of her “work skin,” as it were, Twigs is also the only one to be given what will now be known as her “Eusexua era haircut.” Which means a “semi-2007 Britney,” as only half of her head is shaved (the front part).
Before Twigs and her fellow (erstwhile) office workers cease their dance, Twigs concludes it with the sound lyrical advice, “Crash the system, diva doll/Serve cunt, serve violence.” It is then that Hemingway focuses the camera on a computer keyboard with someone’s hand repeatedly tapping the same button before then panning downward to reveal the office in topsy-turvy mode, with its ceiling now showing signs of dirt and decay infecting the space—almost like a commentary on how fucking antiquated this type of work setup is. At the same time, it’s also a means of remarking on how humans need to literally get back to the earth. Away from all the trappings of so-called modernity that have turned them into automatons. At the “bottom” of the dirt-caked ceiling, Twigs is suddenly outfitted in a black, extraterrestrial-chic “ensemble” (mainly a pair of tights) just as the setting switches entirely and she’s pulled upward (or downward, depending on how you look at it) into an earthen backdrop—this moment somewhat mirroring her being pulled up into a new surreal setting during her famous “cellophane” video.
Writhing in sexual unison with the former office workers who have joined her in this “state of being” (eusexua), they, too, look as though they’ve been ejected—birthed—from out of the dirt that was spilling into the office ceiling. And yes, this type of sexual writhing is something Madonna perfected during The Girlie Show via a performance of “Deeper and Deeper” that concludes with plenty of orgiastic flair (she perfected this writhing, once again, during her performance of “Justify My Love” for The Celebration Tour).
Channeling the lyrics of Olive’s 1996 song, “You’re Not Alone” (during which Ruth-Ann Boyle assures, “You’re not alone, I’ll wait ’til the end of time/Open your mind, surely it’s plain to see/You’re not alone, I’ll wait ’til the end of time for you”), Twigs sings, “You’re not alone (under the stars)/Do you feel alone?/You’re not alone.” A statement that, although seemingly “simple,” still has plenty of importance and meaning to the many people who feel perennially lonely—even more so in this increasingly dehumanized world (and that sort of dehumanization was arguably refined with the advent of the office space).
By the end of the video, Twigs has somewhat left the height of eusexua long enough to realize she’s still in the office (now back in her “professional” attire) as other co-workers appear to remain in a state of feral bliss. Seeming to remember where she is, Twigs also remembers that she probably shouldn’t stay in this hellhole another second…because she might not get the “eusexua call” again. The one that shook her out of her coma in the first place.
In a perfect world, remakes and reboots wouldn’t need to exist at all. Or if they did, the final product would be the result of truly careful, measured storytelling methods that only served to elevate rather than insult the original. Alas, as most know, the world is far from perfect. In fact, it’s as much of a shitshow as the one portrayed in Rupert Sanders’ version of The Crow. And as Sanders’ third movie as director, it’s done little to boost his prospects for directing in the future. This further compounded by his previous credits being Snow White and the Huntsman (mired in scandal when Sanders, then married, was caught having an affair with the film’s star, Kristen Stewart) and Ghost in the Shell. The latter being yet another remake that was panned for more than just casting Scarlett Johansson in a Japanese woman’s role (though that didn’t cause nearly as much outrage as her brief bid to play a trans man). Still, the reviews for Ghost in the Shell seem utterly kind in comparison to what’s been lobbed at The Crow, and from no less than the film’s original director, Alex Proyas, calling it a “a cynical cash grab,” then adding, “Not much cash to grab it seems.”
True indeed, for The Crow made just barely under five million dollars in its opening weekend. It had a fifty-million-dollar budget to recoup. Unfortunately for the studio (Lionsgate), it couldn’t even manage to beat out 2009’s Coraline, which placed at number seven in the United States’ top ten box office (to The Crow’s number eight) after being re-released in theaters in honor of its fifteenth anniversary. The likelihood of The Crow remaining in the top ten at all during its second week of release doesn’t seem promising. All of which is to say: what the hell what wrong? That question isn’t too hard to answer.
For a start, with a movie like The Crow, which has such a strong and devoted following, the OG fans of the film were likely never going to get on board with an “updated” (read: far more “corporatized”) version. Especially one that so often feels as though it desperately wants to check off multiple boxes in different genres. For there’s the “romantic” aspect of it, which often mirrors what Joker and Harley Quinn seem to have going on in the upcoming Joker: Folie à Deux, complete with Eric (Bill Skarsgård) and Shelly (FKA Twigs) meeting at a rehab facility called Serenity, the supernatural aspect and the Tarantino-level revenge and violence aspect. Something that FKA Twigs herself called out in an interview promoting the film, foolishly thinking that it was a good thing that The Crow has such “hodgepodge energy” by saying, “I was amazed at the juxtaposition between the front half, the middle and the end of the movie. It’s almost like there’s three genres in one. At the beginning, you have this incredible coming-of-age love story about these two outsiders who are just desperate to feel at home… and then in the middle, it’s this psychological thriller, and then at the end, you know, it’s kind of pure gore and horror…”
In short, it’s all “kind of” whatever, trying to be everything to everyone perhaps because the writers were aware that it was never going to measure up to the 1994 version, so why not just try to appeal to as many audience members as possible? A “strategy” that, in the end, serves to appeal to no one. Save for, at best, those who have no knowledge of The Crow’s previous iterations as a comic book or Proyas film.
Funnily enough, one of the writers in question of The Crow 2024, Zach Baylin, was not so long ago nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay for King Richard (which lost that year to Kenneth Branagh’s Belfast). So yes, it’s quite an about-face to go from Oscar-nominated to more than likely Razzie-nominated. As for his co-writer, William Schneider, The Crow inauspiciously marks his first writing credit on a full-length feature. It seems both writers ended up on autopilot after a certain point, mish-mashing the timeline of the narrative and eventually losing all sight of anything resembling “logical time” with an ending that not only reverts to a lazy “rewind” tactic, but totally excises the original killers in favor of having the two OD as a reason for their death (or, in Shelly’s case, near death). And, speaking of being junkies, Skarsgård and Twigs have way-too-perfect teeth to fit that casting bill.
As for the Eric Draven (Brandon Lee) and Shelly Webster (Sofia Shinas) of 1994’s The Crow, let’s just say there was a lot more depth to their characters that didn’t rely on the sole “trait” of making them drug addicts. Indeed, Eric and Shelly aren’t junkies at all in the original, just two “ghouls” in love (with Eric also being a musician). As though to highlight how “emo” they are in their love for each other (Jack and Sally from The Nightmare Before Christmas-style) from the get-go, upon unearthing their bodies right after they’re murdered in their Detroit loft, Sergeant Albrecht (Ernie Hudson, of Ghostbusters fame) finds a wedding invitation for the following day, October 31st, prompting one of his fellow policemen to ask, “Who the fuck gets married on Halloween anyhow?” Albrecht replies, “Nobody.”
That was the answer then. The answer now is: plenty of people. Some of whom were likely influenced by the “macabre” stylings of Eric and Shelly’s coupledom (later mirrored in such “unions” as the ones shown in Candy, Corpse Bride and even Only Lovers Left Alive). That sense of, “If you jump, I jump” (or, in The Notebook’s case, “If you’re a bird, I’m a bird”—an appropriate saying for The Crow). And yes, jumping off a bridge does come up in The Crow 2024, with Shelly asking Eric if he would, essentially, die for her. The answer is, needless to say, a resounding yes. But the “intensity” of their “love” for one another often feels forced rather than authentic—even though that’s clearly the aim of the actors involved. And yes, Skarsgård and Twigs seem to be doing the best they can with the material they’re given, with Twigs likely attracted to the project because it furnished her with her first opportunity to play a lead role. Though perhaps she might have been better off sticking to the periphery if this was going to be the result…
As for the decision to add the demonic element into the mix (all in keeping with the trend of satanic panic this year) via Vincent Roeg (Danny Huston), it’s utterly underdeveloped—along with just about everything else in the movie. But this isn’t to say that The Crow 2024 lacks style where substance is totally missing. The soundtrack, visual effects and, yes, “aesthetic” are nothing to be balked at, even if they can never capture (or even dream of recreating) the genuine “lo-fi grit” of Proyas’ film. The effect, instead, is a prime example of what happens when a corporate entity tries to commodify something truly artistic: the authenticity is lost, blatantly so.
In many ways, an “update” (or “reinvention,” as Stephen Norrington, at one point attached to write the script in the early period of its development hell) of The Crow was always going to be doomed. The film was already known for being “cursed” after Brandon Lee died on set after an improperly loaded prop gun killed him. What’s more, in trying to get a “reboot”/“remake” off the ground, a number of actors so ill-suited to the part (e.g., Bradley Cooper) became attached that any fan of the original couldn’t possibly have high hopes.
A few years back, when the project seemed permanently foiled, Proyas hit the nail on the head in terms of addressing the core issue of trying to remake The Crow at all: “It’s not just a movie that can be remade. It’s one man’s legacy. And it should be treated with that level of respect.” Obviously, though, there wasn’t much respect for the original if they weren’t even going to include at least a nod to Sarah (Rochelle Davis), who served not only as a key thread of the film, but also its narrator, the one who tells the audience from the outset, “People once believed that when someone dies, a crow carries their soul to the land of the dead. But sometimes, something so bad happens, that a terrible sadness is carried with it and the soul can’t rest. Then sometimes, just sometimes, the crow can bring that soul back to put the wrong things right.”
Alas, “the crow” can’t right this particular wrong: The Crow 2024. Another one of its fundamental problems being what The Crow comic book creator James O’Barr boiled it down to: “I think the reality is, no matter who you get to star in it, or if you get Ridley Scott to direct it and spend two hundred million dollars, you’re still not gonna top what Brandon Lee and Alex Proyas did in that first ten-million-dollar movie” (Side note: it was originally a fifteen-million-dollar budget, with an additional eight added to it when Proyas decided to complete the remaining scenes with Lee with CGI and a stand-in.)
But, if nothing else comes out of The Crow 2024 (apart from disappointment and tarnished reputations), there is certainly the silver lining that filming in Prague, with all its underground raves and nightclubs, ended up inspiring the sound and tone of FKA Twigs’ upcoming album, Eusexua.
There are people reading this review who weren’t born when producers first tried to bring back The Crow. On this website, the first article about it was 2008 (which just so happened to be io9’s first year of existence), and since then, everyfewyears, a new director and star attempted to adapt James O’Barr’s gothic comic series for a new generation. I mention this because that history—whether you know it or not—somehow hangs heavily on Rupert Sanders’ The Crow, a reimagining of the original source material starring Bill Skarsgård. Simply put, the mere idea of a new Crow movie carries with it an albatross of impossibility. For years, no one could make it happen. There has to be a reason. And that reason must mean whatever finally makes it to theaters won’t be good.
Well, Sanders’ version did make it. It’s coming to theaters this weekend. And, I’m admittedly shocked to say, it’s actually pretty good. It’s not great. There are issues of course. But even the lauded 1994 Alex Proyas film with Brandon Lee had those. Much like that film though, this one feels like a fresh interpretation of the story that may not see immediate success but is destined to be discovered by would-be fans in the years to come.
Eric and Shelly in The Crow. – Lionsgate
The thing that immediately stands out about The Crow is just how obsessed it is with the relationship between the two main characters. There’s Shelly, played by FKA twigs, who finds herself on the run from a mysterious entity and ends up in a rehab facility. There she meets Eric (Skarsgård), an introvert with a troubled childhood who is hated by everyone in the facility. The two quickly bond, escape, and fall madly in love.
The development of that relationship covers the majority of the film, endearing the characters to the audience. It probably goes on too long but the more we spend time with Eric and Shelly the more we care about them, and the more anxiety builds about what’s to come. Because, if you know anything about The Crow, eventually both Shelly and Eric are killed, Eric is given a mysterious set of powers, and he’s told he can bring Shelly back if he kills the people who killed her.
Once Eric gets those powers, it still takes him a fair amount of time to figure them out. Therefore, it’s not until very, very late in the film that the full promise of The Crow is on display. Then, and only then, do we get any prolonged action set pieces or superhero-type moments. And, once that happens, it’s not just cathartic, it’s exhilarating. Sanders crafts an operatic symphony of violence as Eric disposes of the bad guys, with a level of gore sure to make some audience members’ stomachs turn. It’s truly brutal and feels like an almost completely different movie.
Walking down the street in The Crow. – Lionsgate
However, as good as that third act ends up being, it’s also the biggest problem with The Crow. Tonally, it’s three different movies. It’s a romantic love story. It’s the origin story murder mystery. Then it’s a big, exciting, violent action film. Each works on its own but also slightly against the rest of the film because the balance isn’t quite right.
In spite of that, you’re always along for the ride thanks to the magnificent performances by Skarsgård and twigs. Each has such a unique look and presence that you can’t take your eyes away from them. You can tell the characters are broken, potentially scary people, but you can also see and feel an almost river of innocence flowing through them. Plus, their chemistry is just off the charts. It’s as if they’ve known each other forever. Sanders might not have the story quite right, but the characters and performances are spot on.
Even so, there are other issues too. The mythology of Eric’s powers is a little random and confusing. A villain played by Danny Huston isn’t as exciting or captivating enough to pose a real threat. And the ending lacks a bit of the emotional impact you’d hope for after everything you’d just watched. Make no mistake, The Crow is a flawed movie. But the flaws are beautifully at odds with the positives, leading me to say this: if you have any interest in The Crow, and are willing to go in with an open mind, the film will surprise you. It’s much better than you’re expecting and, in moments, actually pretty damned good.
Bill Skarsgård and FKA Twigs star in the tragic love story between a Soundcloud scarecrow and a rebellious cheerleader. Photo: Lionsgate
I can’t say for sure that the doomed lovers in the new The Crow were modeled after Machine Gun Kelly and Megan Fox. But once it occurred to me, the comparison became impossible to shake, because the only better way to sum up the film’s sweaty approach to contemporize its story is the fact that its villain is trying to avoid being canceled. Its hero, Eric Draven, as played by Bill Skarsgård, has the silhouette of a Soundcloud scarecrow, crowned with a Bushwick mullet and inked with tattoos — including a cursive “Lullaby” over an eyebrow — that scream “poor decision-making” as much as they do “emotional rebellion.” Meanwhile, Shelly (FKA Twigs) is pitched as a princess with a dark streak, all elf locks, slip dresses, and sheer layers, a girl who was raised in wealth and trained as a pianist but turned to partying thanks to toxic parenting. The Eric of James O’Barr’s 1989 comic was modeled after Iggy Pop and Bauhaus’s Peter Murphy. An emo-rap update feels right for a movie adamantly branded as not a remake or reboot but a reimagining of the original source material.
The Crow isn’t untouchable — it’s spawned way too many sequels, not to mention a short-lived TV show, for that. But O’Barr’s work and Alex Proyas’s 1994 film adaptation were accompanied by real tragedies — the death of O’Barr’s fiancée in an accident involving a drunk driver and the death of star Brandon Lee in an on-set accident — that gave added ballast to their tormented depictions of a grief-stricken man rising from the grave to seek closure in violent retribution. This new Crow, messily directed by Ghost in the Shell’s Rupert Sanders, with a screenplay by Zach Baylin and William Schneider, feels so lightweight in comparison that it’s almost endearing. Its two beautiful dummies meet in rehab, where they endure the indignity of being made to wear pink sweatsuits and fall in love during group-therapy exercises. Eric imagines Shelly topless in the sketches he pins to his wall, while Shelly is irresistibly drawn to the way Eric sits by himself, declaring him “quite brilliantly broken.” Skarsgård and Twigs have a total absence of chemistry, and while she’s adequate in what’s still basically a dead-wife role, he’s shockingly inert for someone with a career built almost entirely on characters at the intersection of creepy and hottie.
The film may insist that Eric and Shelly’s is a grand romance of soul mates, but what it actually gives us is a burnout-detention boyfriend/rebellious-cheerleader girlfriend dynamic that doesn’t feel like it would last a long weekend. Fittingly, when Eric rises from the grave after he and Shelly are murdered by henchmen on the orders of evil bigwig Vincent Roeg (Danny Huston), he proves pretty inept at undead vengeance. It’s not just that he’s not much of a fighter — that doesn’t matter when your body regenerates thanks to powers granted by a mystical crow from the afterlife. He’s also exasperatingly slow to accept what’s happened to him, he untangles the bad business Shelly was involved in only really by accident, and he doesn’t even put on a trench coat until the final act. The way that Eric fumbles his way toward retribution is right on the verge of funny — at one point, he gets run over by a truck — but The Crow can’t bring itself to display a sense of humor. Instead, it makes up for its hero’s initial bumbling by raising its gore quotient later on.
It’s a lot to ask, following in the footsteps of a subculture mainstay. If there were any sense of intentionality behind this new Crow, I’d say it’s trying to provide representation for the Incompetent Goths out there — the IncompeGoths who get an illegible stick-and-poke on their cheekbone, who are indifferent to how goofy their single dangly earring looks, and who keep getting sent back to mystical purgatory to be lectured by a supernatural mentor that IMDb assures me has a name, Kronos (Sami Bouajila). But this film isn’t coherent enough for that. Its baddie, Vincent, is an immortal arts patron of sorts who made a deal with the devil but spends the movie trying to track down a cell-phone video he’s worried will get him in trouble. It takes place in an apparently American city where almost every resident has a different international accent. Shelly is desperately on the run from a man with enormous power, reach, and demonic connections, and the first thing she and Eric do when they escape from rehab is go back to her luxury apartment, with its chubby furniture, and get trashed together.
Look, deep thoughts and deeply held emotions aren’t for everyone, and there’s something blissfully empty-headed about the scene in which Shelly, posing with a book at an Instagram-ready picnic with some random friends, informs Eric that she’s reading Rimbaud. If only The Crow were a little more self-aware, it could be a cult classic in its own right — though probably not the kind its makers were hoping for.
The reboot of The Crow has been gestating for more than 15 years, and now it’s finally ready to hatch. To be fair, there was some omens hovering over the project. Based on James O’Barr’s comic-book series of the same name, the latest film adaptation has seen a revolving door of writers, directors, producers, and stars, making the simple fact that it even has a release date no small feat. Not to mention the fact that the 1994 cult classic isn’t exactly known for its moderate box-office success. Brandon Lee, son of Bruce Lee, tragically died on the set of the first film after being shot by a prop gun.
The new team got Ghost in the Shell and Snow White and the Huntsman director Rupert Sanders to guide The Crow to a landing. Bill Skarsgård and FKA Twigs snagged lead roles in the film about an undead man who vows to avenge his brutally murdered wife. Now that’s a casting decision that has fan-fiction writers racing to their keyboards at superhero speeds. So what else do we know about the comic-book movie in a time famously mediocre for comic-book movies?
Had this film arrived a decade ago with these stars and this aesthetic, it would have sent the witchy Tumblr girl economy into overdrive. In one first-look image, Eric (Skarsgård) and Shelly (Twigs) do their best interpretation of René Magritte’s The Lovers, kissing despite being separated by a sheer white curtain. In another, the couple share a look beside a campfire with Eric’s evil-eye tattoo peeking out from his T-shirt and “Lullaby” inked above his eyebrow. While Lee’s Eric sports a bob and monochromatic clown makeup à la a Kiss bandmate, the 2024 version opts for heavy black rings around the eyes and a cartoonish smile line drawn in thick eyeliner.
Rock bands Joy Division and the Cure were of no small influence to the director when he was working on the film. “Look, I grew up listening to Joy Division and the Cure, and this movie is a bit like a Cure song — the beauty of melancholy,” Sanders toldVanity Fair in an interview dated February 28. Okay. He decided the project was for him when he realized he could make a “dark romance, something that dealt with loss, grief, and the ethereal veil between life and death and reaching through that.” Sanders hasn’t given us any details on what we can expect plotwise, but he did tellDeadline he wanted to “reimagine The Crow as a foreboding voice of today.”
The cast list has seen higher turnover rates than digital journalism gigs. But despite losing Bradley Cooper, Tom Hiddleston, Luke Evans, Jake Huston, and Jason Momoa, the show will go on. Isabella Wei stars alongside Skarsgård and Twigs as Zadie, while Danny Huston, Laura Birn, Sami Bouajila, and Jordan Bolger joinThe Crow in undisclosed roles.
