Movies
[Fantasia Review] Limbs Fly in Ultra-violent, Vixen-led ‘The Villainess’!
This is how all love stories should end – not with a whimper, but with a sword fight to the death that takes you crashing out of a window and soaring down the side of a building as cut glass sprinkles around you like sharp snowflakes in a storm. This is the newest film from director Byung-gil Jung called The Villainess, and it not to be missed.
Hell hath no fury like a woman betrayed too many times, and Sook-hee is living proof of it. It all started when she was a little girl, and she watched her father being brutally murdered while she quietly hid under her bed. Quickly discovered, she was nearly assaulted and fileted herself when suddenly she was rescued by a kind stranger. Her life forever changed, Sook-hee set out on a life of vengeance, growing up as a trained assassin, and living only for two things: the quest for revenge, and the man who had stolen her heart. Together, she and her new partner in crime collected payments off of the bounties of bodies of bad men, fulfilling Sook-hee’s thirst for blood, and molding her into one of the deadliest killers to ever walk the globe.
It all seemed so perfect – this chance to turn her tale of tragedy into a thrilling account of triumph. She has lost her father, but gained a lover who would die for her – but at the same time, could fend off anyone who dare try. That is, until one horrible day, while she was on her honeymoon no less when she lost the man she loved forever and became enslaved in a secret agency wherein she was forced to become a killing machine for a new group of baddies – and set up for yet another doomed office romance.
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The opening of this film is absolutely brilliant. Shot in the style of a first person POV long oner, all the audience can see are two mysterious black gloved hands, slicing and dicing their way through a warehouse and an army of men. Blood splatters wildly, limbs fly carelessly through the air, waves and waves of armed men pour into the frame, only to be swiftly skewered and reduced to just another casualty. No one is safe from this mystery assassin, and all who dare approach quickly regret their entrance. Deep red crimson paints the walls as the camera whips and pans to catch every moment in startlingly close proximity – it’s as if we, the audience, are the assassin, and no one can take us on.
It’s not until the killer’s head is smashed into a mirrored wall that the identity of the attacker is revealed – it is a woman, and she is smiling through blood soaked teeth. One tiny girl took all these massive men down, leaving dozens of bodies in her wake, and cannot be calmed until armed authority officials rush in and eventually seize her in the rain-soaked alleyway.
The Villainess has its issues, but holy shit is it badass. Clunky and confusing at times, some of the storyline is a bit hard to follow – who exactly killed her father? Why are they after he daughter? Why is it so important to trick Sook-hee into marrying a fellow assassin from the agency? – but the action scenes more than makeup for the messy bits, even if they are slightly weighed down by the romantic narrative. It slows down a bit in the middle, but it’s worth watching this one through to the end, just so you can see a lover’s quarrel escalate into a full on bloody brawl. I mean, a sword fight that takes place during a high-speed chase atop motorcycles zooming down a highway!? What more can you ask for in a movie? The Villainess has it all, including one of the fiercest lady killers in quite some time – a treat that feels long overdue. Vixen-led vengeance doesn’t get much more exciting than this.
Judging from the unprecedented box office success of Kane Parsons’ Backrooms adaptation, you’ve likely already seen the liminal horror hit that managed to make audiences afraid of empty hallways and bad wallpaper. And now that so many of us have already entered the yellow labyrinth (some of us more than once), the time has come to discuss the spoiler-filled details that make the movie so fascinating in the first place.
And if there’s one element here that makes the Backrooms movie stand out from any previous lore/mythology, it has to be the genius addition of the Still Life entities. Warped recreations of real people that somehow wandered into the Complex, these misremembered creatures are responsible for some of the most disturbing imagery of 2026 – as well as laugh-out-loud memes created by one of the film’s very own concept artists.
However, true to Parsons’ word that the movie would rely heavily on practical effects, each of these distorted monsters was brought to life by real actors under heavy layers of makeup and prosthetics (with the occasional splash of CGI enhancements). While Anora and If I Had Legs I’d Kick You actress Ivy Wolk wasn’t among these performers, despite what Letterboxd might have you believe, the creature cast did benefit from veteran players with plenty of genre experience.
For starters, Alien: Romulus alumni Robert Bobroczkyi (who previously brought that film’s horrific Offspring to life during its most memorable sequence) plays the flick’s main antagonist, the Still Life version of Captain Clark. And though there was some obvious CGI involved in making the character’s peg-leg and nightmarish face more believable, Bobroczkyi’s monstrous performance and his natural 7’7″ frame helped to make that final chase sequence a clear highlight among this year’s genre offerings.
The film’s Texas-Chain-Saw-inspired “dinner” scene also features a freaky collection of less-aggressive Still Life creatures in the form of the Bearded Man, the Red-Headed Woman and, strangest of them all, the cheekily named “Archibald Leland Sutter Still Life” (who earned this title among fans and crewmembers as a reference to his apparent affinity for lamps).
While this was the first major horror outing for both Patrick Baynham (The Bearded Man) and Dana Mahmood (Archibald), Rhiannon Roberts has worked as a stunt performer in everything from Yellowjackets to HBO’s The Last of Us adaptation – which is probably why The Red-Headed Woman is the most active out of Clark’s impromptu “family.” That being said, the Archibald Leland Sutter Still Life is my personal favorite of the bunch simply because his anachronistic outfit suggests that the Backrooms phenomenon might be a lot older than the Async Foundation. I also love how hard he tries to be helpful with that little light of his!
That might be it for the Still Life entities, but I think horror fans will also be pleased to hear that the film’s Found Footage prologue stars none other than Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City star Avan Jogia as Naren Warne – and American Mary herself Katharine Isabelle also shows up in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it cameo at Mary’s house party towards the middle of the story (though I have a feeling that she originally had a bigger part that was likely cut for time).
At the end of the day, Parsons’ Backrooms may have been an auteur-driven project motivated by the young director’s unique take on the classic creepypasta, but film has always been a collective artform, so it’s fun to see just how many talented performers it takes to bring this kind of supernatural nightmare to life in a way that connects with so many people.
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