In Fabric (2018)

Directed by: Peter Strickland | 118 minutes | comedy, horror | Actors: Gwendoline Christie, Sidse Babett Knudsen, Marianne Jean-Baptiste, Caroline Catz, Julian Barratt, Hayley Squires, Richard Bremmer, Leo Bill, Susanna Cappellaro, Steve Oram, Fatma Mohamed, Jaygann Ayeh, Simon Manyonda

The supercooled horror of ‘In Fabric’ feels dryly comical. An anachronistically dressed saleswoman in a Russian-accented fashion department store trying to sell an evening dress to a worn out single mother with David Lynch-esque lyrics? There is something of ‘get on with it’ in the resigned gaze of the buyer of the dress – called Sheila.

It’s Marianne Jean-Baptiste, who already shone with a mimically perfect portrayal of an illegitimate child in Mike Leigh’s Secrets and Lies. Director Peter Strickland is known for his highly acclaimed budget debut ‘Katalin Varga’ from 2009, in which a woman travels through the Carpathians with her son in search of the father, her rapist.

So many Dracula and the like in the imagination of the Englishman, who set the stage of ‘In Fabric’ in his hometown of Reading. With an eye for the underdog. The hocus pocus surrounding a bewitched dress, which makes victims with every user, is stylishly rendered – a mix of Edgar Allen Poe and Moulin Rouge, as a sauce about the worn-out life of the average person. For example, there is a second plot line with the wimpy maintenance engineer Reg (Leo Bill).

Things are derailing in the effects. A dinner party is interrupted by a washing machine that goes haywire. That can only be comical. Then again the dress is ripped from Sheila’s body by a stray dog. Somehow, the magical world doesn’t match the protagonists’ waiting for Godot. But then there’s another exciting scene in which the Victorian mischief-makers of the department store assault a mannequin.

It plays with colliding worlds, especially those of Sheila and Reg’s painted exterior and earthly life. Strickland was full of ideas and could imagine a few perfectly, but it just doesn’t fit. He tries to reach our subconscious with conflicting signals. In addition to the soundtrack, the excellent cast has to be mentioned, with an honorable mention for Fatma Mohamed as a scary saleswoman.