Over the past decade, filmmaker Alex Garland has established himself as one of the most ambitious and inventive storytellers in the world of sci-fi cinema, thanks to projects like Dredd, Ex Machina, and Annihilation. Each film explores a different corner of the genre, which allows them to all feel uniquely compelling in their respective realms. Garland has once again attempted to explore a new corner of the genre with his latest film Men, which pivots away from sci-fi and more towards abject horror, while still denying the audience the opportunity to define it within categorized constraints. Both its terrors of a home invasion and its allegories for gendered trauma work independently of one another, yet the blend of these themes results in an experience that feels like two distinct and unrelated films as opposed to one fulfilling experience.
