‘The dress is your image onto what you project, through an illusion.’

Charlotte Sometimes goes to horror movies, so you don’t have to. Except this is a horror movie that is well worth checking out if you like highbrow Euro trashy brilliance. It’s like if Eastenders met Suspira met Phantom Thread – with equal amounts phantom and thread. In 2010 the little-seen Rubber told the story of a murderous tyre (it’s well worth a look). Now, in 2019, we have the story of a killer dress in In Fabric.

Or do we? That’s what makes In Fabric such a delicious watch. Because that’s what it is, utterly delicious. It seamlessly blends horror and macabre comedy delivered with a deadpan expression and knowing tone. It’s beautifully shot, even the properly weird stuff is made to look beautiful. And there’s a lot of properly weird stuff. You find yourself feasting on the absurdity and delighting in the film’s boldness.

It’s hard to recall a recent film that has embraced the macabre so fully and with such surrealism. And with so much emotion. Unsurprisingly, the film isn’t just about the dress. Although set during the Winter sales season, when a ghost dress ensnares a range of victims, it manages to meditate a great deal on the nature of love, family and friendships.  But in the way Hereditary did, by inflicting horrible things on people who didn’t necessarily deserve it. The residents of the world of In Fabric are normal folk, to an almost boring extent. The reason they are chosen to receive the dress, or the reason the dress chooses them is never explained. It doesn’t really need to be.

We already bought into the concept from the outset.

Like George A.Romero’s 1978 Dawn of The Dead, this too is a condemnation of materialism and the traumas of consumerism – all within a meaningful horror parable that is essentially a descent into madness.

Captivating, raucous and utterly intoxicating.

In Fabric is available in selected cinemas and on VoD services now.