Unmasking the Endless Echo: Alex Garland’s ‘Men’ and the Haunting Cycle of Masculinity

In the verdant traps of the English countryside, grief births a grotesque procession of men, each face a mirror to primal sins and unending cycles.

Alex Garland’s 2022 folk horror masterpiece Men ensnares viewers in a web of psychological torment, where a widow’s solace unravels into a nightmarish confrontation with the shadows of manhood. Far beyond mere scares, the film probes the festering wounds of trauma, patriarchy, and biblical allegory, cloaked in the eerie traditions of British folk horror.

• Garland masterfully blends personal grief with archetypal folk motifs, transforming a simple country retreat into a descent into collective masculine dread.
• Rory Kinnear’s virtuoso performance as every man in the village exposes the multifaceted horrors lurking within patriarchal structures.
• Through Christian symbolism and pagan rebirths, Men dissects original sin, forcing audiences to confront the cyclical violence embedded in gender dynamics.

The Widow’s Descent into the Green Abyss

Harper Marlowe, portrayed with raw vulnerability by Jessie Buckley, arrives at a secluded 16th-century manor in the Cotswolds after the suicide of her husband James. The film opens with a harrowing flashback: James plummets from a high-rise balcony, his body crumpling grotesquely upon impact, limbs folding unnaturally as blood pools in visceral crimson. This primal image sets the tone for Harper’s fractured psyche, her grief manifesting as auditory and visual distortions throughout the narrative. The countryside, usually a bastion of pastoral idyll, becomes a claustrophobic labyrinth of ancient yew trees and crumbling stone walls, their textures rendered in stark, naturalistic lighting that evokes the foreboding atmospheres of early folk horror like Witchfinder General.

As Harper settles into the manor owned by the affable yet unsettling Geoffrey, played by Rory Kinnear, the first omens emerge. A naked man, inexplicably covered in scratches, stumbles into view during her walk, his pursuit initiating a motif of relentless male intrusion. Kinnear’s transformation here is uncanny: his body language shifts from lumbering primal gait to leering confidence, embodying the film’s central conceit that all men in the village share his features, voices subtly modulating to reflect archetypal masculine personas. This doppelgänger parade is not mere gimmickry but a profound psychological device, suggesting Harper’s trauma projects outward, or perhaps reveals a universal truth about male uniformity in the face of female vulnerability.

The production design amplifies this unease. Cinematographer Benjamin Kračun employs wide-angle lenses to dwarf Harper amid overgrown foliage, the lush greenery turning predatory, vines snaking like veins across mossy facades. Sound design by Glenn Freemantle layers ambient dread: distant church bells toll ominously, wind whispers through leaves like accusatory murmurs, and the recurring motif of male groans builds a choral cacophony. These elements root Men in folk horror’s tradition of nature as antagonist, akin to the feral landscapes in Ari Aster’s Midsommar, but Garland infuses it with intimate psychological realism.

A Procession of Patriarchal Phantoms

Kinnear’s multifaceted roles form the film’s spine: the policeman who dismisses Harper’s assault complaint with patronising chuckles; the vicar sermonising on Eve’s sin amid phallic maypole dances; the boy who taunts her with misogynistic chants; even Geoffrey’s decomposing pregnant form in the finale. Each incarnation peels back layers of masculinity, from bumbling authority to pious hypocrisy, culminating in a birth scene of abject horror where a smaller, identical man emerges from the larger, symbolising infinite regeneration. This mise-en-scène of male multiplicity critiques how patriarchy perpetuates itself, each man birthing the next in an endless loop of entitlement and aggression.

Harper’s interactions expose these facets. The policeman’s gaslighting mirrors real-world dismissals of women’s testimonies, his laughter echoing James’s manipulative final call where he blames her for his self-harm. The vicar invokes Genesis, twisting Apple’s expulsion into justification for female subjugation, his stained-glass backdrop fracturing light into bloody shards. These scenes dissect toxic masculinity not as aberration but as systemic, woven into England’s rural fabric, where historic church rituals mask primal urges. Garland draws from folkloric studies, evoking the Green Man archetype—a pagan fertility figure subsumed by Christianity—manifesting as the naked wanderer’s foliate crown of scratches.

Performances elevate the allegory. Buckley’s Harper evolves from numb shock to defiant rage, her screams piercing the soundscape like ritual incantations. Kinnear, however, steals the film; his subtle vocal inflections and physical contortions make each man distinct yet unified, a tour de force reminiscent of Peter Sellers in Dr. Strangelove. Their climactic tunnel crawl, bodies entangled in a grotesque chain, births horror from physical intimacy, slime and blood mingling in a rejection of conventional monster tropes for something viscerally human.

Biblical Echoes and the Stain of Original Sin

At its core, Men grapples with original sin through a feminist lens. The apple motif recurs: Harper bites into a fruit stained with the intruder’s blood, her act inverting Eden’s narrative where woman’s curiosity invites curse. James’s deathbed words accuse her of emasculation, positioning her as Eve who ‘broke’ him, a patriarchal recasting of guilt. Garland, influenced by Milton’s Paradise Lost, reimagines the Fall as masculine projection, the men’s chorus chanting biblical verses in a mock litany that devolves into grunts.

This theological horror extends to rebirth imagery. The finale’s matryoshka delivery—man birthing man, placenta rupturing in gory excess—parodies nativity, suggesting sin’s inheritance is patrilineal, untainted by female agency. Critics have noted parallels to Julia Kristeva’s abject theory, where the maternal body horrifies because it threatens phallic order; here, reversed, male gestation exposes vulnerability, the cord linking oppressors in perpetual cycle. Garland’s script weaves these symbols seamlessly, avoiding didacticism for poetic ambiguity.

Historical context enriches this: post-#MeToo, Men reflects cultural reckonings with male accountability, its 2022 release amid ongoing debates on gender violence. Yet Garland resists polemic, grounding horror in Harper’s grief, her visions blurring hallucination and reality—did the naked man truly chase her, or is it suicidal ideation projected? This psychological ambiguity elevates the film beyond genre exercise into existential inquiry.

Folk Horror Revival: From Hammer to Hereditary

Men revitalises folk horror’s golden age, pioneered by The Wicker Man and Blood on Satan’s Claw, where rural communities harbour pagan secrets. Garland updates the subgenre for modern anxieties, swapping occult cults for insidious everyday sexism. The maypole scene, with its ribald dances under phallic poles, evokes Hammer Films’ earthy rituals but infuses them with contemporary unease, children mimicking adult leers in a chilling generational transmission.

Special effects warrant scrutiny: practical makeup by Tristan Conyers-O’Brien crafts the birthing sequence’s repulsiveness without CGI excess. The men’s skin stretches taut over bulging forms, wounds suppurating realistically, evoking The Thing‘s body horror but rooted in folklore. Sound amplifies: low-frequency rumbles accompany each emergence, visceral bass pressing on eardrums like fetal kicks. These techniques ensure the horror lingers physically, long after screens fade.

Influence already ripples: Men has inspired discourse on folk psych-horror’s resurgence, alongside Starling and She Will, positioning Garland as subgenre steward. Its Cannes premiere divided critics—praised for boldness, critiqued for excess—yet box office and streaming success affirm its cultural puncture.

Grief’s Monstrous Mirror: Psychological Depths

Harper’s arc traces Kübler-Ross stages warped through trauma lens. Denial manifests in her initial countryside embrace; anger erupts in vicar confrontation; bargaining via hallucinatory dialogues with James’s ghost. Acceptance eludes, replaced by ritual confrontation, her hurling stones birthing catharsis amid carnage. Garland, drawing from his screenwriting roots in trauma narratives like 28 Days Later, crafts a heroine whose agency reclaims horror space.

Class undertones simmer: the manor’s bourgeois isolation contrasts villagers’ earthy menace, critiquing urban-rural divides where city women intrude on patriarchal enclaves. Sexuality threads subtly—Harper’s self-pleasure interrupted by voyeurism underscores violated autonomy. These layers demand repeat viewings, rewarding with fresh horrors.

Ultimately, Men indicts not individual villains but systemic perpetuation, its ambiguous coda—Harper reunited with a spectral James amid falling leaves—suggesting grief’s inescapability. In this, Garland achieves profound terror: the monster is us, reborn eternally.

Director in the Spotlight

Alex Garland, born Samuel Alexander Garland on 26 May 1970 in London, emerged from literary roots to redefine speculative cinema. Son of a political cartoonist father and psychoanalyst mother, his childhood immersed him in surrealism and Freudian depths, influences evident in his visceral explorations of the human mind. Garland first gained acclaim as a novelist with The Beach (1996), a backpacker odyssey adapted into Danny Boyle’s 2000 film starring Leonardo DiCaprio, launching his screenwriting career.

His breakthrough script 28 Days Later (2002), co-written with Boyle, revitalised zombie genre with fast-infected rage virus hordes, blending social commentary on isolation with visceral action. This led to Sunshine (2007), a cerebral space odyssey grappling with faith and hubris, and Never Let Me Go (2010), a dystopian romance from Kazuo Ishiguro’s novel emphasising quiet devastation. Garland’s directorial debut Ex Machina (2014) won an Oscar for Best Visual Effects, its sleek AI thriller dissecting Turing tests, gender, and creation myths through Alicia Vikander’s enigmatic Ava.

Annihilation (2018), adapted from Jeff VanderMeer’s novel, plunged into mutating biomes with Natalie Portman, earning cult status for psychedelic body horror and existential dread despite studio cuts. TV venture Devs (2020) explored determinism via quantum computing, starring Sonoya Mizuno. Men (2022) marked his folk horror pivot, followed by Warfare (upcoming), a WW1 immersion with Joseph Quinn. Influences span Cronenberg’s corporeality, Tarkovsky’s metaphysics, and British sci-fi like J.G. Ballard. Garland’s meticulous prep—storyboarding obsessively—yields taut, idea-dense films, cementing him as thoughtful provocateur.

Actor in the Spotlight

Jessie Buckley, born 28 December 1989 in Killarney, Ireland, rose from pub gigs to international stardom through unyielding intensity and vocal prowess. Raised in a musical family, she honed pipes in local theatre before studying at London’s Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA). Rejection from The X Factor in 2008 proved pivotal, redirecting her to stage: breakout as Persephone in The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny (2011), then raw turn in The Tempest.

Television propelled her: BBC’s War & Peace (2016) as fiery Marya Bolkonskaya; The Last Post (2017). Film debut Beast (2017) showcased feral edge opposite Gerard Butler. Wild Rose (2018) earned BAFTA Rising Star, her country singer Rose-Lynn dreaming amid Glasgow grit, soundtrack soaring. Nominations piled: Olivier for Company (2019) as gender-swapped Bobby; Emmy for I’m Thinking of Ending Things (2020) Charlie Kaufman’s surreal sorcery.

The Lost Daughter (2021) opposite Olivia Colman won Gotham Award; Women Talking (2022) ensemble critiqued patriarchy. Men (2022) demanded physical extremes, her Harper’s arc blending fragility and fury. Stage returns include Cabaret (2021) as Sally Bowles, winning Olivier. Filmography spans Judas and the Black Messiah (2021), Fingernails (2023), and voice in The Brutalist (upcoming). Awards: WhatsOnStage, Evening Standard; Grammy nod for Cabaret cast album. Buckley’s chameleon range—singing, dialects, raw emotion—marks her as generational force.

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Bibliography

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