Review of Nightmare Alley (2021) by Mauro_Lanari — 19 Apr 2022

(Mauro Lanari).

Referrals to the '32 Tod Browning or to Herzog's very first works are scarce. More central is the reference to the authors who have related the monstrous human condition to a spiritual condemnation: the Lynch of "The Elephant Man" (1980) and the Fincher of "Se7en" (1995), from the teratological aborted fetuses, here the biblical Enoch, caused by original sin, to the deadly sins depicted here between the inscriptions "House of Damnation" and "Take a look at yourself, sinner". Guillermo del Toro returns to collaborate with Ron Perlman but outside the cinecomic, the demonic in 2004's "Hellboy" (the monk Rasputin) takes off the clothes of the graphic novel and assumes those of the man-beast, the childhood traumas of "Pan's Labyrinth" (2006) are no longer fairytale or fantasy, the allusions to Francoist become blatant quotes from Hitler. The director, convinced of completing a path of maturity, in the continuation of the movie abandons his famous stylistic code and embraces realism, repudiates chorality and focuses on the nefarious prophecy of the protagonist with his hubris. Even Guillermo has surrendered to nihilism.