Compulsion Review: Neil Marshall’s Foray Into the Lurid Giallo-Style Erotic Thriller is Mostly a Missed Opportunity

Neil Marshall mixes luridness and sleaze in his latest exploit, Compulsion, channelling Dario Argento with a mix of Brian De Palma and even Paul Verhoeven’s filmmaking style. The movie opens promisingly with a nighttime POV shot that ends with a grisly kill — the kind of graphically violent moment that stays in the frame long enough to evoke viewer reaction with none of the unnecessary camerawork or deliberate editing being used for subduing purposes. It is as brutally stark as it gets.

There’s a mysterious killer on the loose, all fully dressed in an S&M latex getup. And the local police from Malta, led by Detective Claudia Cavara (Giulia Gorietti) and her partner, Inspector Crawford (Harvey Dean), are now actively investigating the case. It’s all over the news, with the press dubbing the killer the “Maltese Phantom” (get it?).

But Compulsion isn’t told from their perspective, opting instead for Evie (Anna-Maria Sieklucka of the 365 Days trilogy) serving as the main protagonist. She just arrived in Malta for a vacation and stays at her rich stepfather’s villa somewhere on the island. She is soon attracted to her sexy neighbour, Diana (Charlotte Kirk), where the latter shares the same passion with Evie. Marshall, who also co-wrote the screenplay with Charlotte Kirk, tries to establish the erotic tension between Evie and Diana with all the elements of sexual tease and the occasional flirting with each other. Marshall’s camera is constantly seen ogling at their bodies whenever possible, with the utmost male-gazing approach typically seen in such a genre.

But as much as Sieklucka and Kirk are trying their best displaying their come-hither performances, there’s a strangely lack of the much-needed spark in their chemistry. Their subsequent sex scenes are mostly shot like an empty, glossy music video, but devoid of the salacious thrills and intimacy. The story incorporates the usual red herrings designed to make us armchair detectives try to figure out who the mysterious killer behind the mask and the latex getup is. Could it be Evie or Diana, or perhaps someone else altogether?

Whoever it is, the guess-the-killer narrative angle isn’t as compelling as I thought it would be, missing the opportunity to turn Compulsion into an intriguing thriller. It doesn’t help either when Claudia and Crawford are looking like incompetent detectives, who are often a few steps behind, and the police procedural revolving around them comes across as an afterthought. By the time one of them put two and two together, it’s all too late.

The movie is also struggling with an erratic pace, while the dialogue tends to sound either cheesy or atrocious. Not to mention it culminates in a rather underwhelming third act, making me wonder if Marshall is running out of steam. While the story and characters are pretty much a mixed bag, it’s hard to deny that Marshall still has a flair for exploiting a genre that doesn’t shy away from blood and violence. Apart from the attention-grabbing opening scene, there is plenty more on display. At one point, an unfortunate victim is savagely maimed by a sword.

But it was this scene that fulfilled the genre requirement — an uncompromisingly vicious, yet messy and gory set-piece filmed in a seemingly long, unbroken take. Let’s just say it involves multiple stabbings. And I mean, lots and lots of them. Neil Marshall’s recent works have been wildly inconsistent, hopping from one genre to another, with the horrendous period horror The Reckoning and the tedious slog of crime thriller Duchess failing to recapture his astute genre know-how direction particularly seen in his first two movies, Dog Soldiers and The Descent. The downward trend sadly continues with Compulsion, and despite boasting some vividly graphic kills, the movie mostly misses the mark.