Well, they were really asking for it with that title, weren’t they? With jump-in-your-seat scares, supernatural silliness and a hodgepodge of spooky cinematic references, Hokum is a bubbling Irish stew from West Cork-born writer and director Damian McCarthy. He throws everything into the pot: local folkloric tales of an evil witch, a magic mushroom-gobbling oddball who lives in the woods, a basement that holds dark secrets. The first few slurps go down a treat, but ultimately the clashing flavours overpower one another. Sometimes less is more, y’know?

• Read more: The 10 weirdest horror films of all time

Ohm (Adam Scott) is a successful American author who’s pitched up at the Bilberry Woods Hotel, a creepy establishment in rural Ireland. He’s arrived to scatter the ashes of his parents, who honeymooned here decades ago and always longed to return. Before even stepping foot inside the place, he’s encountered a strange apparition and a dead goat. Upon check-in, he finds an old man regaling random young lads with a hair-raising story about the aforementioned witch. Ohm chastises the auld fella, who intones: “There are worse things out there than strangers, yank.”

So it proves. The author, a curmudgeon who’s breathtakingly vicious to a bellboy (Will O’Connell) with dreams of becoming a writer, nevertheless strikes up a rapport with Fiona (Florence Ordesh), another staff member. When Fiona goes missing, Ohm makes it his mission to find her. All fingers point towards wood-dwelling Jerry (David Wilmot), who insists he’s had a vision that suggests her fate may have something to do with the hotel’s eerily sealed-off Honeymoon Suite.

All of this bubbles along pretty nicely for the movie’s first half. McCarthy has said that Hokum “doesn’t take itself too seriously” and indeed he pulls off a good balance of chills and gentle laughs. Scott manages to convey his character’s darker side without making him too dislikeable, so it’s all the funnier when Ohm – whose patience is thin at the best of times – encounters the local weirdos. References to The Shining (the overhead tracking shots of Ohm driving through the Irish countryside, the woman in the haunted room) are a little on-the-nose, perhaps, but do set the film’s enjoyably parodic tone.

Alas, things start to go awry when Ohm finally gets into the Honeymoon Suite. Until then, we’ve seen shadowy glimpses of the witch, with the movie teasing her grand reveal – tension that has carried the story so far. Perhaps something really horrifying happened in the editing room, but the film soon earns its title in the worst way.

A murder mystery collides with a haunted hotel horror until one of them is pretty much forgotten about, resulting in a narrative that feels frustratingly aimless. It actually becomes slightly difficult to make out what’s going on, given that two of the supporting characters are so similar and underdeveloped that it’s hard to tell them apart. And as for the ending: we won’t spoil anything, but the dreaded words “it was all a dream” come to mind. Still, a few of the jump scares are ruthlessly effective and, with its cartoonishly gothic tone, Hokum does what it says on the tin.

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a sequel for summer blockbuster season? Groundbreaking. But this follow-up to The Devil Wears Prada – which grossed a hefty $326 million and featured an Oscar-nominated Meryl Streep – actually feels quite exciting. If anything, David Frankel’s 2006 adaptation of Lauren Weisberger’s salty roman à clef has grown in stature over the past two decades.

Biting one-liners like “by all means move at a glacial pace” and “details of your incompetence do not interest me” have entered the pop cultural lexicon. Meanwhile, revisionist thinkpieces have argued that the real villain of the piece wasn’t Streep’s Miranda Priestly, the fearsome magazine editor who terrorised Anne Hathaway‘s unlikely assistant Andy, but Adrian Grenier’s negging boyfriend Nate. Even Vogue boss Anna Wintour, whom Miranda was allegedly based on, has called the film “a fair shot”.

It helps that pretty much everyone – except for Grenier, of course – has returned for The Devil Wears Prada 2. Frankel directs from a script by original screenwriter Aline Brosh McKenna, who finds a just-about-convincing way to reunite Streep’s withering editrice with her ambitious former assistant. However, a full 20 years after imperious Miranda schooled fashion-averse Andy about the significance of cerulean blue, the power dynamic has shifted somewhat.

Miranda is still the revered editor-in-chief of fashion mag Runway, but sales have plummeted since legacy media was overtaken by digital content, and a recent article about a dodgy fast fashion brand has spooked advertisers. Andy, who is now an award-winning but conveniently unemployed investigative journalist, is parachuted in to restore Runway’s gravitas as its new features editor. Can they learn to work together to save an ailing institution that may or may not be based on Vogue? Spoiler: they can, though Brosh McKenna’s screenplay lobs in enough obstacles to justify the two-hour runtime.

Where the original affectionately satirised the fun and frippery of the fashion industry, The Devil Wears Prada 2 often feels like a paean to old-school print media. After her fast fashion fumble, Miranda is forced to take a humiliating meeting with Dior, one of Runway’s top advertisers, which is now headed up by another former assistant, Emily Blunt‘s brittle Emily. When her one-time underling suggests a puff piece about Chanel’s new flagship store to smooth over the cracks, Miranda agrees without batting an eyelid.

The decline of old-school journalism really isn’t funny – ask any writer – but fortunately this film manages to be witty as well as surprisingly pertinent.  The promotion that Miranda is now angling for sounds suspiciously similar to Wintour’s global chief content officer role at Condé Nast. Streep’s queenly editor may be a little less devilish than she was in the Smartphone era, but she’s still capable of giving a scheming rival an absolutely savage dressing down. Hathaway, Blunt and Stanley Tucci, who’s poignant as Miranda’s right-hand man Nigel, also tear into their old roles like interns handed a luxury goody bag.

Kenneth Branagh is barely tested as Miranda’s new husband Stuart but Bridgerton‘s Simone Ashley is suitably aloof as Miranda’s new assistant, Amari. When Andy mentions that she gave away the vintage Chanel she pocketed during her first Runway stint, Amari’s unimpressed look is practically Priestly-esque.

A perfunctory romantic subplot linking Andy to a bland property developer (Patrick Brammall) should have been edited out and the ending is perhaps a little too sentimental. But this is still a smart and satisfying sequel. The Devil Wears Prada 2 feels like a sleek update on a classic, not a cheap knock-off that falls apart in the wash.

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D espite the attendant controversy and a reportedly chaotic production – more on that later – this Michael Jackson biopic could clean up at the box office. It’s currently tracking for a $60million opening weekend in North America, which would beat the $51million debut of Queen biopic Bohemian Rhapsody in 2018. It’s hard not to view that glossy blockbuster as the blueprint for Michael, not least because the two movies share a producer, Graham King.

Michael’s other producers are John Branca and John McClain, the co-executors of Jackson’s estate. Their goal is to showcase his sparkling discography. Jackson may be the tarnished King Of Pop but he’s still big business. Nearly 17 years after his death, he racks up more monthly Spotify streams than any other non-living artist. 

Directed by Antoine Fuqua, who began his career shooting music videos before levelling up with blockbusters such as 2014’s The Equalizer, Michael is a much safer movie than it might have been. According to a recent Variety report, the third act was supposed to explore how Jackson was impacted by multiple allegations of child molestation in the ’90s and beyond. However, Jackson’s estate reportedly had to fork out for reshoots after it emerged that the singer’s out-of-court settlement with Jordan Chandler, the first of his accusers, included a clause barring Chandler from being depicted on screen. Whatever the truth behind the alleged reshoots, Michael is no career-spanning biopic.

It means that Jackson’s story essentially ends in the early ’80s. ‘Thriller’ has become the best-selling album of all time but the tabloids have yet to brand him “Wacko Jacko”. Instead, the film’s dramatic tension comes from his fractious relationship with his father Joe (Colman Domingo), an exacting ‘dadager’ who beats young Michael (Juliano Krue Valdi) with a belt.

Fuqua’s film skips through Michael’s early hits with The Jackson 5 – ‘ABC’, ‘I’ll Be There’, ‘Never Can Say Goodbye’ – before focusing on his solo breakthrough via 1978’s ‘Off The Wall’ album. Now played with convincing mannerisms and vocal inflections by Jaafar Jackson, Michael’s real-life nephew, the singer gradually extricates himself from his father’s shadow. 

Along the way, there are frequent reminders of Jackson’s genius. The highlight of the entire film is a dazzling recreation of his ‘Billie Jean’ performance at 1983’s Motown 25 special, during which he performed the moonwalk for the first time. Insights into his creative process are a little less forensic: after Jackson tells manager Branca (Miles Teller) that he wants to be the world’s biggest artist, he goes away and writes the songs that make this happen: ‘Beat It’, ‘Billie Jean’, ‘Wanna Be Startin’ Somethin’. But was it really that easy?

Throughout, the efficient script by John Logan (Gladiator, Skyfall) paints the singer as a benevolent but driven manchild who visits sick kids – and adults – in hospital. There are hints that Jackson’s fondness for cosmetic surgery could become a problem but it’s bizarre that his most famous sibling, Janet Jackson, is never even mentioned.

So, Michael feels like a job well done: it’s a slick, accessible advert for Jackson’s incredible imperial phase. But if the singer’s estate wanna be startin’ somethin’ bigger like a film franchise, they’ll have their work cut out.

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We know what you’re thinking: who the heck is Lee Cronin and why should we care about his mum? Long story short: it seems there are so many movies about the titular creature that the director’s name has been appended to differentiate this one from all the others. And – to answer your other question – no, Brendan Fraser isn’t in Lee Cronin’s The Mummy (though he will be in the upcoming third sequel to the action franchise he kicked off in 1999).

Look, let’s not get too hung up on the name thing. In fact, they needn’t have called this one The Mummy at all, given how far removed it is from the iconography you might associate with the bandaged baddie at the heart of the movie. Charlie (Jack Reynor) and Larissa Cannon (Laia Costa), a TV reporter and nurse respectively, are living in Cairo with their two young children, Katie (Emily Mitchell) and Sebastián (Shylo Molina). They experience every parent’s worst nightmare when Katie goes missing, a horror that is as effectively wrought as anything else in this frankly demented film.

Fast-forward eight years, the couple now have another daughter Maud (Billie Roy) and are doing what they can to move on with their lives, aided by Larissa’s mother Carmen (Verónica Falcón). When a helicopter crashes in woodland, however, it’s the beginning of a whole new nightmare. The only survivor is found to be bandaged and sealed inside a sarcophagus. They’re in a very bad way and unable to communicate. Guess who?

From this point on, the film teeters around self-parody but barrels along with such joie de vivre (or, more accurately, the joy of being undead) that you’re swept up along with it. Katie (now played by Natalie Grace) is so obviously a demonic mummy – papery skin covered in filthy rags, toenails like an eagle’s beak – that it’s unintentionally funny to see the Cannons gently reintroduce her to the family home. One scene where Larissa attempts to sort out those gnarly feet is surely nailed-on (pun intended) fodder for the inevitable sequel to the upcoming Scary Movie reboot.

But then perhaps that’s partly the point: the movie goes to such dark places that it could become totally unwatchable if it wasn’t a little cartoony. Cronin, a burgeoning horror auteur who’s only on his third feature following 2019’s Hole In The Ground and 2023’s Evil Dead Rise, ratchets up the tension with glee. The final hour or so unravels like a flailing bandage into a relentless onslaught of guts, gore and – in one deliciously deranged set-piece – false gnashers.

Along with dogged detective Dalia (May Calamawy), Charlie puts his reporting skills to good use to figure out what happened to Katie and how they might reverse it, adding an engrossing element of mystery to Lee Cronin’s The Mummy. That title wrongly suggests the work of an artistic visionary scaling new heights of elevated horror; instead, this is a fun, dumb thrill ride that breathes powerfully fetid air into the ongoing string of mummy movies. Over to you, Brendan.

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The week before a wedding is always going to be stressful. But in writer/director Kristoffer Borgli’s pitch-black comedy, a shocking revelation leads to pre-marriage hell for Charlie (Robert Pattinson) and Emma (Zendaya). Quite why you’d participate in a potentially ruinous party game so close to your big day is just one aspect of The Drama that never feels entirely convincing but it makes for one hell of a conversation starter. It also provides an opportunity for Borgli – who previously wrote and directed surreal Nicolas Cage comedy Dream Scenario – to maximise discomfort on and off screen. This is cinema to make you squirm.

From the off, Borgli toys with the facades people put on even in the most intimate relationships, and pokes at moral quandaries around thought crime and perceived wrongdoing. Take the meet-cute between Charlie and Emma, where he pretends he’s a fan of the novel she’s reading. The fact she doesn’t initially hear him due to being deaf in one ear is just the start of the awkwardness that only gets more excruciating as the film progresses.

Egged on by recently married friends (Alana Haim and Mamoudou Athie), Emma and Charlie confess to “the worst thing they’ve ever done” over a drunken dinner. It’s Emma’s revelation that detonates a shockwave that reverberates far beyond the wedding party. Her confession hasn’t been revealed in trailers and it feels like a spoiler to divulge it here. But the whole film hinges on the admission, which occurs 20 minutes in and is already doing the rounds on social media.

It will be divisive, warrants a trigger warning and, for some, will simply be beyond the pale. For those with a higher offence threshold though, it’s an exaggeratedly provocative conceit to explore how perception of a partner’s past can colour a relationship in the present. It’s an idea that Borgli digs into with increasingly intense results.

The Drama seems destined to provoke heated post-film discussions – not only about ethics in comedy but also your own personal limits when it comes to a loved one’s past. Amid all the wincing, Pattinson and Zendaya provide a solid anchor for the often outrageous material in their first of three shared projects this year (The Odyssey is out in July and Dune: Part Three follows in December).

Zendaya’s vulnerability and regret complicates the fallout from her shocking reveal, and it’s a rare opportunity to see Pattinson in more of a stripped back everyman role, unencumbered by a put-on accent or extreme makeover. With his dadcore wardrobe and museum job, he’s an ordinary bloke stuck in the centre of escalating chaos. Alana Haim also makes a spiky impression, her character’s reaction to the situation stoking the tension further.

The discomfort that’s baked into the premise of The Drama is amplified by disconcerting camera moves, cuts and audio choices, as well as Daniel Pemberton’s unsettling score. But despite all that, Borgli successfully plays things primarily for laughs. It’s hard not to cackle at a photographer’s choice of words or Charlie anxiously editing his wedding speech. Like Dream Scenario, The Drama doesn’t quite stick the landing after such an intriguing set-up but leaves plenty to chew on if you’re brave enough to RSVP.

The post ‘The Drama’ review: Zendaya and Robert Pattinson’s darkly funny wedding comedy should come with a trigger warning appeared first on NME.

It’s only March but 2026 has had its fair share of bloodshed already. Ghostface headed out on another rampage in Scream 7, Rachel McAdams went feral in Send Help and the infected returned in 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple. Whatever the rest of the year has in store for gore-lovers, few films will be able to match the splatter and mayhem of new horror comedy They Will Kill You.

Zazie Beetz stars as Asia who comes to wealthy New York high-rise The Virgil to work as a maid. Little does she know The Virgil houses a satanic sect that plans to use her as a human sacrifice. To the devil worshippers’ surprise, Asia is armed to the teeth and hard to kill – her new job was actually cover for a secret mission to rescue her long-lost sister. Facing an army of rich psychopaths, Asia shoots, stabs and slices her way towards a family reunion.

The film proudly elbows plot to one side and we are quickly thrown into a gorefest filled with kills that would make Quentin Tarantino clutch his pearls. Anything that can be cut off, ripped out or blown to pieces is fair game for director Kirill Sokolov, as he finds new and innovative ways to turn people to mush. Borrowing elements of Kill Bill, The Raid and a dozen other cult classics, it’s not overly clever but it is a lot of fun.

There is some faint social commentary here, adding to the Hollywood trend of “kill the rich” dark comedies (How To Make A Killing, The Menu, Ready Or Not). Thinking too hard about the finer details of class warfare is missing the point of They Will Kill You though. It’s 90 minutes of carnage that wants to make you wince, scream and hopefully smile.

Beetz throws herself head first into her final girl persona, holding her own during the relentless action scenes and providing the perfect viewpoint for the audience. Reacting to her ridiculous circumstances with a quick wit (and quicker trigger finger), she embodies the spirit of the many action heroes They Will Kill You references.

Patricia Arquette might have wished for a more nuanced role as the building’s superintendent Lilith, but is clearly game for a laugh as an over-the-top baddie with a wobbly Irish accent. You’ll recognise Heather Graham and Tom Felton among the Virgil’s crazed residents, and while they are a touch under-used they are fun to watch as they try in vain to hunt down our hero. Graham’s perky persona is delightfully at odds with her demonic dialogue, while former Harry Potter villain Felton is perfectly at home playing another ignorant rich boy.

They Will Kill You is a deeply unserious comedy horror that provides just enough plot to get it to the next bloodbath. It might not work for some but there’s something in the enthusiasm of all involved that is hard to resist as they craft a gleefully chaotic spectacle.

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“We’re in trouble,” BTS rapper Suga sighs, putting his hand to his head. He’s in a studio in Los Angeles as the seven-member Korean boyband work on their big comeback album, ‘Arirang’, their first group release since being discharged from their mandatory military service. But, as the new Netflix documentary BTS: The Return finds, getting back into gear as the world’s biggest band isn’t exactly straightforward.

• READ MORE: BTS – ‘Arirang’ review: Korea’s pop kings make a grand return

Directed by Bao Nguyen (The Stringer, The Greatest Night In Pop), BTS: The Return serves as a fly-on-the-wall look at the process of RM, Jin, Suga, J-hope, Jimin, V and Jungkook coming back together. There are no formal interviews, just snatches of insights from the members in their downtime, often in the backs of cars on their way to and from the studio. Instead, most of the illuminating factors come from Nguyen’s crew acting as observers, watching tensions and triumphs unfold in front of them.

We get glimpses into songwriting sessions where RM questions whether his English lyrics are awkward as a non-native speaker, round the dinner table chats between the group at the end of long days, and intimate, lo-fi scenes shot by the band on handheld cameras. The doc takes us into discussions with label executives, whether Big Hit Music creative director Boyoung Lee suggesting the concept behind ‘Arirang’ with the members or HYBE chairman and founder Bang Si-hyuk making the case for using a different version of the album’s opening track, ‘Body To Body’. There are recreational moments, too, from all seven stars going to the beach in Santa Monica to relax, to snapshots of their lives outside of the studio, like V delivering the first pitch at the Dodgers or Jungkook hanging out with his dog Bam back in Korea.

Those conversations with the label feel like the most enlightening and interesting part of the film – access to a side of BTS’ career that has largely remained under wraps. For quotes like Suga explaining that making music, for him, has “been a way to document where I am in my life”, you get execs suggesting the group write something that’s universally relatable. ‘Arirang’’s lead single ‘Swim’ becomes a hot point of contention, with some of the members themselves unsure that it’s the right focus track for their big comeback.

Through it all, the overwhelming sense BTS: The Return gives is one of a group at a crossroads, figuring out which way to turn. At points, they’re decisive about needing more Korean lyrics, only for their team to steer them in a different direction. Early in the film, RM reflects on their past and how to move forward into the future, explaining they “have to decide what to keep and what to change”. That idea becomes the fuel behind the documentary as the group work through sessions in LA before finishing the record in South Korea, and whether you think they solved it will largely depend on your opinion of ‘Arirang’. Whatever your conclusion, watching the journey to this point is thoroughly intriguing.

‘BTS: The Return (A Documentary)’ is streaming now on Netflix

The post ‘BTS: The Return’ review: illuminating fly-on-the-wall look at the group’s big comeback appeared first on NME.

Bring Me The Horizon’s new concert film, L.I.V.E. In São Paulo, eases us in with the gentle sounds and late ‘90s aesthetics of a PS1 Final Fantasy VII loading screen – but it’s a false dawn. After being warned of “explicit scenes of violence and gore”, we’re asked to choose a difficulty level: easy, normal or extreme. When it comes to the Sheffield metal giants, there can be only one choice.

The “L.I.V.E” in the title stands for “Live Immersive Virtual Experiment”. If you were lucky enough to witness Bring Me at their mind-blowing Reading & Leeds headline set last year or 2024’s blockbuster arena tour, you will have played this enjoyable game before. “The world has crumbled to ash and the dead are feasting on the remains,” the storyline on screen reveals, while a demonic, parasitic presence has broken out of a lab and spread a deadly virus. Hosting proceedings is the impish avatar Eve: “I hope you enjoy tonight’s performance, as it will be the last one you ever attend,” she promises. “Are you ready to live your lives like you’re ready to die?”

• READ MORE: Bring Me The Horizon on ‘Nex Gen’, recovery and life after Jordan Fish: “You have to accept who you are”
  

Bring Me have come to São Paulo to play to a sold-out crowd of 50,000 fans at the Allianz Parque – the biggest headline gig of their career. With a show that follows the post-apocalyptic arc of their ongoing ‘Post Human’ album series, this film could have buckled under the weight of that lofty concept. Instead, we get a tastefully curated and constantly enthralling rollercoaster ride.

Stitched together from different types of contrasting video – modern and vintage cameras, drone shots, fan footage – their performance is suitably fiery, from the stratospheric choruses of ‘Mantra’ and ‘Happy Song’ to the feral rush of old-school ragers ‘Antivist’ and ‘Shadow Moses’, the cyberpunk madness of ‘Parasite Eve’ and ‘Kingslayer’ to the augmented reality of a fittingly possessed ‘Amen!’ (during which Sykes transforms into a demon in real time, which is ace).

It’s as much about the fans as it is the band – and the film appropriately reflects the magnitude of the moment, bringing the viewer into every circle pit, every tearful outburst, every declaration of love. There’s even a few proposals during ‘Follow You’. If our wedding invites get lost in the post, we’re gonna be pissed.

Sykes, who speaks as much Portuguese as he does Yerrrrkshire drawl, tells the audience about the time he first visited the native land of his now-wife Alissic, – and that he didn’t expect to fall in love with a whole country as well. The feeling is clearly reciprocated. There’s a genuinely moving montage of BMTH’s journey from skinny-jeaned noughties hardcore upstarts to Coldplay table-toppling troublemakers at the NME Awards to now – a globe-conquering stadium force. This is how metal should be done. Don’t miss it.

Details

• Directors: CiRCUS HEaD, Oli Sykes
• Release date: in cinemas March 25 and 28

The post ‘Bring Me The Horizon L.I.V.E. In São Paulo’ review: a love letter to their fans and statement of greatness appeared first on NME.

some stories simply come to an end and don’t need expanding on. When a film rakes back almost 10 times its budget though, as the horror comedy Ready Or Not did in 2019, it’s time to spin the narrative wheel of fortune and see where it lands. An origin-exploring prequel? A confident stride on the road to a trilogy? Or, y’know, you could just remake the first movie.

Co-directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett have cheerily plumped for the latter option with Ready Or Not 2: Here I Come picking up exactly where its predecessor left off, with new supporting roles from Elijah Wood, Sarah Michelle Gellar and legendary horror filmmaker David Cronenberg thrown in for good measure.

Made for just $6million, the original followed Grace (Samara Weaving) who’d transcended her humble origins to marry the scion of a stinking rich board game dynasty (sure). Unfortunately, it transpired that the family had inked a deal with the Devil in exchange for their generational wealth – should they fail to slaughter Grace by dawn, Satan himself would come a-knocking.

The premise was actually more knowingly convoluted than that with all manner of comedic clauses and rituals included in the contract, but the movie was really an excuse for a series of gory set-pieces. It wasn’t quite funny enough to be a full-blown comedy or played straight enough to be genuinely scary, however Ready Or Not’s mix of outlandish kills and broad class satire offered good, goofy fun.

The sequel kicks off with Grace still wearing her blood-soaked wedding dress, standing on the steps of the clan’s country pile and dazed by her unlikely triumph. With police swarming around her, it initially seems as if returning screenwriters Guy Busick and R. Christopher Murphy have set themselves an intriguing task: what real-world ramifications might follow a bloody, brutal clash with pure evil? With so many bodies in her wake, it certainly looks like Grace is destined for the slammer, her estranged sister Faith (Kathryn Newton) suggests with deadpan glee.

Alas, we’re soon back to more familiar territory. Thanks to yet another clause in the Devil’s contract, Grace and Faith must team-up and defeat a shadowy cabal on – you guessed it – a big old country estate. If they emerge victorious, their prize will be world domination.

So yes, it’s as daft as it ever was. While the original’s dastardly devil worshippers were a hoot to hate, Here I Come is stuffed with underwritten characters who often sink into the background. The sisters evade so many bullets that they appear to have been touched by magic, rendering the whole thing a little pointless. A running gag about the bad guys spontaneously exploding is seriously overplayed. In fact, the original’s twinkly sense of mischief is generally dulled this time around.

Still, there are some entertaining showdowns and Weaving again excels as the funny and fearsome Grace, one of modern horror’s toughest protagonists. If this film does as well as the first, we should probably expect a threequel – whether you’re ready or not.

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For a little while there, it seemed as if Louis Theroux might be losing his magic. In the last few years, his celebrity interview podcast series prompted some of the shakiest reviews of his career and he looked dangerously out of touch in his 2022 documentary on Florida’s rap scene, Rap’s New Frontline. Dangerous because he poked, prodded and risked inflaming rap beefs as though unaware that this could have potentially fatal real-world consequences for his interviewees.

Then, thankfully, came last year’s unflinching The Settlers which brilliantly documented the rise of religious-nationalist Israeli settlers in the West Bank, suggesting that Theroux was back to his best. Now he’s returned with his first feature-length Netflix doc. Louis Theroux: Inside the Manosphere is easily one of his greatest yet, again exploring fringe ideologies that have seeped into the mainstream.

Inside the Manosphere is a meta masterpiece that tackles the algorithmic poison being served to young men, but also says so much about the battle between new and old media, as well as the toxic battleground of social platforms, contemporary conspiracy theories and the parasocial relationships that make some influencers rich. If he appears to be riding the coattails of Adolescence, Theroux seems keen to emphasise that the film has been in production since at least early 2025.

He meets Harrison Sullivan AKA HSTikkyTokky, who’s been accused of homophobia and sexism; Myron Gaines, who literally wrote the book on misogyny – it’s called Why Women Deserve Less; and Sneako, who believes we’re living through a biblical end of days because Sam Smith wore devil horns to the Grammys. Seriously. It says a lot that Miami’s Justin Waller, who explains that he’s in a “one-sided” monogamous relationship with a woman who “doesn’t talk to other men”, seems like the most palatable of the bunch.

Obviously, these guys are cranks. At one point, Gaines claims that women are deceptive because “you don’t know when they’re on their period”. What? Yet enormous audiences are drawn to their relentlessly combative content. Gaines invites young women on his podcast only to humiliate them, while Sullivan livestreams his underlings beating up a man on the street, then has the footage clipped up across social media and emblazoned with the logo for an online gambling company.

Ironically, all of these swaggering Andrew Tate wannabes seem terrified of Theroux and are clearly worried he’s trying to stitch them up. So why did they agree to take part in his programme? Perhaps they crave the respectability of ‘mainstream media’ while appearing to reject it. At one point, Sullivan starts talking to the camera as he would on TikTok before being reminded to pretend it’s not there, highlighting the illusion that documentaries operate on. Sullivan’s goons constantly livestream the making of Theroux’s film, indicating the queasy hall of mirrors that they inhabit.

Theroux explores the trauma that seems to drive the influencers and their acolytes, but only briefly touches on the wider political implications of their Make America Great Again-adjacent messaging: perhaps he could have dug more deeply into this. Then again, you can only do so much in 90 minutes and he’s certainly shown the lads up as scared, insecure little boys offering easy answers in a complex world that has left them feeling adrift. If the manosphere really does have to be a battleground, Louis Theroux just owned its loudest voices.

‘Louis Theroux: Inside the Manosphere’ is out now on Netflix

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