A young, female FBI agent with mild psychic abilities (Maika Monroe) must assemble and decode a set of clues to identify and capture a serial killer who specializes not only in murders, but suicide-murders of entire families.

Nicolas Cage is in it, but so rarely on screen that you’d call it a cameo if he weren’t so soul-scarring, not to mention almost unrecognizable in heavy makeup. His performance proves he hasn’t yet reached the “top” part of over the top.

It’s claustrophobic and weirdly lit with eerie sound design and a steadily increasing sense of hopelessness and bone-chilling dread. It goes beyond the usual serial killer motives (sick, twisted,
sadistic) and oozes pure evil.

While watching this deeply disconcerting experience unfold, I was formulating in my head some sort of wisecrack about it being a ripoff of Silence of the Lambs. Then I was going to dis the director, Osgood (“Oz”) Perkins, saying something like his main claim to fame as a horror director is being the son of the actor who played Norman Bates in what is arguably the best horror movie of all time. And then top it off by calling it “forgettable” or some such.

Well, turns out the debt to SotL is fully acknowledged, Perkins is emerging as a genuine horror auteur, and as for being forgettable, I think I’ll sleep with the light on for a while. But it’s more than a little style-over-substance, it frequently lapses into absurdity (satanism, spooky dolls, unholy nuns), narratively it’s all over the place, and the ending is weak.

For serious genre fiends only, and don’t even think about making it a date movie. (101 min)