mystery

As previously mentioned I avoid horror where people do terrible things to each other, because that could happen, and probably does, and I don’t care for jump scares in my old age. This gets through on my sci-fi horror technicality: none of this could happen—I hope at least—so I was free to enjoy the shapeshifting gore from a more… scientific point of view. That thing has organs.

Because the effects are physically there, they hold up better than most CGI (the defibrillator scene especially). Only the odd jerky transition gives their age away. The Morricone score has dated worse than the rubber: that early-80s synth tone sounds way older than it should. The ending hangs brilliantly.

Horror is very much not my thing, but sci-fi horror—even better, space horror—somehow is? Sure, it’s unoriginal and unsubtle, but I’ve always liked it. The mooted director’s cut (that can’t be completed due to the poor condition of the materials) sounds like it would have been quite the experience.

Kaufman’s least immediately legible film, and potentially his most rewarding for it. I didn’t clock how the Jake scenes and the janitor scenes connected until the credits rolled, which may be the point or may just be me being slow—either way, I want to come back to it, just not yet. I suspect a lot more clicks if you’ve got the full reference shelf to hand (David Foster Wallace, Pauline Kael, Wordsworth, A Beautiful Mind, the musicals, etc), rather than catching half like I did. Buckley and Plemons are fantastic, and Collette and Thewlis match them on a fraction of the screen time.

The plot creaks and Cruise does his earnest-sprinter routine, but the real pleasure is watching Pollack assemble the deepest supporting cast of the decade. Hackman (weary, rueful), Hal Holbrook’s avuncular menace, Ed Harris doing more with a sigh or a “fuck!” than most leads manage with a monologue, Holly Hunter stealing twenty minutes outright, plus Strathairn, Brimley, Busey, Tobin Bell, Sorvino, Dean Norris: every door that opens, someone you recognise walks through.

I’m a complete mark for films where some aimless nobody pulls at a thread and gradually uncovers a conspiracy several orders of magnitude bigger than they bargained for. Under the Silver Lake knows this about people like me and exploits it ruthlessly.

Andrew Garfield is perfectly cast as a repellent protagonist—no job, no aspirations, no redeeming qualities, and (the film is at pains to remind us) he literally stinks. The whole thing drips with cynicism about Hollywood and that part of LA, landing somewhere between David Lynch and a paranoid Reddit deep-dive. It’s the sort of film you’ll either love or find completely insufferable.

I expected a materialistic thriller and I got an iPhone ghost story about grief. Quietly great!

20-odd years since I last saw this and I can only watch it through two modern lenses: roguelikes and LLMs. None of us knows what happened; we’re all just dying and resetting for each new run. And Leonard’s context window is tiny; the Polaroids are his system prompt.

Watched on Tuesday March 17, 2026.

“Never ask for what ought to be offered.”

First viewing in maybe 15 years?