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Film Review — Opus
John Malkovich is on gloriously deranged form as a pop star cult leader in Mark Anthony Green’s enjoyably preposterous horror-thriller
Fans of John Malkovich will doubtless get a big kick out of Opus. As 90s pop megastar Alfred Moretti, he is at once a deliriously flamboyant, theatrical performance artist with something sinister lurking behind the expected charm and egomania. Given Malkovich’s baggage as an actor with a wonderfully self-deprecating sense of humour — see Being John Malkovich (1999) as evidence — there can be no doubt the actor is having a whale of a time here, sinking his teeth into a knowingly Malkovichian role.
Make no mistake; writer-director Mark Anthony Green’s feature debut is utterly ridiculous, but I found it hugely entertaining. With a premise that echoes The Menu (2022) and Blink Twice (2024), this horror-thriller involves under-appreciated New York journalist Ariel Ecton (Ayo Edebiri), who, with her credit-stealing boss Stan (Murray Bartlett), heads to a remote desert compound to hear a preview of Moretti’s first album in decades. Upon arrival, Ariel is perturbed by the eerie, cult-like inhabitants of said compound, who surround Moretti in an alleged artistic idyll.
Naturally, something is rotten in Denmark, or Utah in this case. The first…
