(Variety)
A horror movie in all but name, mirrors and dark lighting aplenty as it drenches its reptillian protagonist in the blended worlds of showbusiness and predators, our protagonist himself (an oily and excellent Pattinson) a shark in this cesspool. The shots of Jared the Subway Guy got a dark chuckle out of me, as did the contextualisation of the time period with the discussions of the Iraq War: more fuel for the broiling quagmire of madnes and panopticons of our media-obsessive witch hunt age. In an age of media circuses moving online, and the ever-present spectres of "content" farming for heinous things, this absolute moral minefield is engrossing and gripping stuff. Merritt Weaver is excellent as the vicious producer, Skyler Gisondo steals the show (as he always does, love that guy) as the young "Decoy Dan" actor thrown straight in the deep end to the wolves, and the casting on the whole is absolutely bonkers: Bokeem "Mike Milligan" Woodbine as a Sheriff, Phoebe Bridgers (for some reason) as another decoy, Alex Winters (yay!) in a chilling final act, Jonathan Lipnicki is old enough to go full frontal (I feel old...) and a producer from the era further blurs the lines by playing himself. It's a slithery, slimy, skin crawling good time.
