Patience is greatly rewarded in director Jordan Downey’s The Cycle, a dour crime procedural that transforms into a thrilling practical effects-fueled horror movie. Downey, who co-writes with his cinematographer Kevin Stewart, dedicates quite a lot of its runtime to a methodical deduction of coincidences and the impossible, until only an improbable, exciting supernatural solution remains.
At the forefront of the crime investigation is Dr. Meg Garland (Deborah Ann Woll), an expert on death and decay. So much so that when the police find a rather peculiar crime scene that’s stumped their local medical examiner, they call her in for her expertise. The only catch, though, is that one of the bodies happens to be Meg’s estranged father of 34 years. The further into her search for answers, the more those around her die.
Stewart’s cinematography and rather gruesome forensic work evoke shades of Seven, a somber setting for Meg to work through her emotional baggage while showcasing why she’s the foremost expert in her field. Helping her are officers Ian (Will Hochman) and Marks (Jeffrey Donovan), a son and father duo serving as the ideal relationship Meg would’ve loved to have with her own dad had he not abandoned his family decades ago.
To remind that this is, indeed, a horror movie beyond a serial killer thriller, Downey injects a few terrifying hallucinations and flashbacks, underscoring the familial trauma Meg’s long ignored. Less effective are visually incoherent scenes propelling the murder mystery forward; Downey intentionally obscures attack scenes to preserve the element of later surprise, but it’s hard to discern what’s even happening on screen.
Woll’s vulnerable yet determined nature carries the front half through its rough patches, complete with clumsy foreshadowing, particularly where dialogue is concerned. The Cycle might be a dead giveaway title for savvy monster lovers, but the script attempts to throw off audiences with clunky mentions of Frankenstein’s monster or an on-screen DM from a “Demeter” handle.
The excellent news is that when the movie’s monster finally arrives, what a grand entrance it makes. The gruesome corpse work in the front half is merely the appetizer for Patrick Magee’s full-throttle SFX work in the back half, combining old school transformation techniques with modern, grisly creature design in a way that delights and surprises. Making this ferocious monster even more intimidating, as if the gnarled, gruesome design wasn’t enough, is creature performer Trevor Newlin (Smile 2, Alien: Romulus).
While much less so than the film’s front half, shaky camerawork does frustratingly obscure some of the action in an intense finale, a move likely to bypass limitations of creature FX. Fog also becomes a masking crutch in a crucial final confrontation.
The Cycle juggles a grisly crime procedural, complete with plenty of red herrings and mutilated bodies, and a winsome creature feature. At the center of all, connecting both almost disparate halves, is a family tragedy. But too much time is spent on Sherlock Holmes’ style of deduction and answer-seeking that it leaves little room to resolve the many questions raised in the back half.
Even still, the compassion The Cycle affords all of its characters carries it through to one hell of a monster movie in the back half. Downey adds new wrinkles and lore to my personal favorite variety of movie monsters, surprising with an inventive twist to a familiar staple. It may take a while for The Cycle to fully show its hand, but it’s more than worth the wait.
The Cycle made its premiere at Fantastic Fest and will debut on Shudder on October 23.
