Meta-narratives may have only recently become popular in mainstream media, but stories within stories have been a part of human culture since ancient times. From One Thousand and One Nights to Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman, our fascination with the repercussions of storytelling has itself been transformed into fuel for compelling stories, and this also applies to the horror genre.
Cosmic horror yarns are chock-full of characters who go mad after reading cursed tomes, and we’ve already covered the meta-terror of Mark Z. Danielewski’s House of Leaves, but few movies have managed to capture the magic of being deeply disturbed by an unnaturally gripping story. One exception to this is Tom Ford’s controversial thriller Nocturnal Animals, with the fashion-designer-turned-filmmaker using the film’s Russian doll setup to explore how horror narratives can be used to communicate.
Based on a novel by Austin Wright, the 2016 film follows art gallery curator Susan (Amy Adams) as she works her way through an unsettling manuscript mailed to her by her ex-husband Edward (Jake Gylenhaal). The manuscript describes a terrifying thriller about an unsuspecting family being harassed by criminals during a Texas road trip, with the father (again played by Gyllenhaal) being forced to embark on a grief-filled quest for closure after the horrific incident. Along the way, Susan is slowly affected by her reactions to the deeply personal novel, with the film intercutting her life and memories with the story she’s reading.
While critics almost unanimously praised Adams, Gyllenhaal and Michael Shannon (who plays a cancer-ridden detective in the story-within-the-story), many reviewers accused the film of being excessively dense, pointing out the paper-thin connections between the layers of narrative and some baffling creative decisions (like that bizarre opening). There was also plenty of criticism directed at the film’s treatment of women, with some outlets even labeling Nocturnal Animals as an exploitation flick masquerading as an arthouse picture.
Despite these controversies, the movie was ultimately well-received by film festivals and awards shows, proving that Ford wasn’t just a one-trick-pony when it came to filmmaking.
So Why is it Worth Watching?
For starters, the aforementioned praise of the film’s performances wasn’t exaggerated. Almost every single actor is at the top of their game here, from Gyllenhaal’s frantic grieving father to Shannon’s doomed detective. And while Adams’ character is mostly a reactive figure, even she finds ways to insert nuance and personality into a complex individual that could have easily come off as unlikable.
Aaron Taylor Johnson also delivers some of the best acting of his career as an all-too-believable sociopath, with the filmmakers being confident enough to let the actor portray the character as a flawed human being instead of taking the easy way out and making him a cartoonish villain. It actually takes a while for you to register Johnson and his buddies as a genuine threat, but once things kick into gear, they quickly become some of the most hateable antagonists in fiction.
Other than the smorgasbord of memorable performances, the film also works as an intellectual exercise, letting viewers figure out the stories’ connections on their own time without spelling out any obvious answers. While certain recurring themes, like the contrasting depictions of masculinity, make it clear that there is an overarching narrative at work here, the story also functions at face value as a surprisingly harrowing thriller.
After all, sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, and the film’s individual pieces work on their own as excellent bits of genre entertainment, making it so that you can still enjoy Nocturnal Animals even if you’re not willing to engage with its narratological baggage.
What Makes it Horror Adjacent?
Backwoods horror may not be as prevalent now as it was back in the 70s, but it’s hard to watch the story-within-the-story of Nocturnal Animals and not be reminded of uncomfortable classics like Deliverance, Straw Dogs and even Wes Craven’s The Last House on the Left. Ford’s film may not be a bona-fide horror flick, especially during the melodramatic “real life” segments, but it certainly emulates a lot of genre thrills and even features an unexpected jump scare or two.
That being said, Johnson’s character and his gang come off as genuinely scary individuals precisely because of how stripped down the narrative is, with Ford (and Wright before him) forgoing common genre tropes and focusing on the primal emotions behind this awful situation. This grounded perspective transforms a familiar setup that could easily be the opening act of a Liam Neeson flick into a truly horrific ordeal.
Hell, the kidnapping itself feels so real that it could have been ripped straight from tabloid headlines (even if the ending gets a bit more symbolic), but the build-up is just as terrifying. It slowly dawns on the viewer that things are worse than they appear and there’s nothing that these characters can do to escape. Honestly, I can’t even remember the last time that I was so uncomfortable while watching a movie, and the knowledge that this is just make-believe doesn’t actually make things any less terrifying, with audiences being left to question why exactly Edward would want Susan to read this.
Sure, the tension lets up a little bit once the family’s ordeal is concluded and Gyllenhaal’s character is left to pick up the pieces, but that first half of the story will certainly appeal to fans of realistic terror. I don’t quite agree with critics who accused Nocturnal Animals of being an exploitation flick, especially since it features some really poignant reflections on ill-fated relationships, but there’s no denying that the film has at least one foot in the horror genre.
There’s no understating the importance of a balanced media diet, and since bloody and disgusting entertainment isn’t exclusive to the horror genre, we’ve come up with Horror Adjacent – a recurring column where we recommend non-horror movies that horror fans might enjoy.