TV: A woman and many creepy men – the horror film “Men”

Her marriage had recently been a single hell. But since her husband fell into death before her eyes, the life of the London Harper (Jessie Buckley) has not gotten better. The pictures of the horrific experience do not leave the mid -thirties. She had wanted to leave him. Despite – and precisely because of his blackmail in the relationship.

Escape to the country – and the horror is getting bigger

Did the Bipolare James (Paapa Essiedu) make the repeated threats with suicide true? Or was it an accident when he wanted to get into her apartment? The picture as he flies past the balcony window and seems to look into her eyes does not leave in daydreams.

The TV audience gets to know Harper in the horror film “Men” as an unsettled woman who is looking for a fresh start and ends up in the next horror. “Men” runs on Monday (July 7th) at 10:15 p.m. in the second and will be in the ZDF streaming portal for a month from Sunday (July 6) at 10 a.m.

In order to complete the traumatic experiences, Harper has withdrawn to the landlord’s idyllic holiday home. With its greasy and somewhat scary nature, the captain can handle calmly. After all: apparently he doesn’t want her anything bad.

The pastor is also a bad person

But when a naked, scarred man only chased her through an old pedestrian tunnel and then – again how God created him – is silent in front of the window of her holiday home, Harper is enough. When he wants to go to the door, she calls the police. The officers take the wild exhibitionist in the patrol car. For now.

The encounters with other locals of the small village in the idyllic Gloucestershire are also disturbing for the city of the city. A woman-hate teenage boy insults her in front of the church. A pastor wans up slimy and wins Harper’s trust. However, he has no consolation to offer, but sprinkles salt into her fresh mental wounds and gives her the main culprit to the death of James.

After Harper has to listen to from a police officer in the pub in the malicious tone that her naked stalker was released shortly after the arrest, she wants to cancel her vacation in the country. But Harper’s girlfriend Riley (Gayle Rankin) talks to her and promises to travel to her. But at night before she finally arrives, terrible things happen in the cottage.

An actor in almost a dozen roles

The Briton Alex Garland is a master in having people slipped into bottomless abysses from the deepest normality. He already demonstrated this as the author of the novel “The Beach”, as the author of the script for “28 Days Later” and as a director of “Ex Machina”.

A special highlight of “Men” is that the actor Rory Kinnear embodies pretty much all the figures in the village – almost a dozen different men, sometimes two in one scene. Digital trick technique makes it possible.

The big theme of the film, which in 2022 with the subtitle “What is looking for you will find you”, is the experience of toxic masculinity. Unfortunately, the discussion with this remains on the surface. Nevertheless, the thriller exerts a surreal pull that pulls down into the horror ever deeper – until the grand finale.