Enys Men

ENYS MEN
Writer/director – Mark Jenkin
Stars – Mary Woodvine, Edward Rowe, Flo Crowe
2022 – UK

Mark Jenkins’ ‘Bait’ was a sensation in its DIY formation. His follow-up ‘Enys Men’ (Cornish for “Stone Island”) is similarly constructed with a clockwork Bolex camera, and an even more audacious post-production sound design comprised of often sharp diegetic sound and blaring drone. (If any more evidence is needed that lazy jump-scares are simply a result of volume, see if you jump at innocuous Cornish landscapes because the of blasts of musical stings.) The feel is of a 70s folk horror with bold colours, some print flares and speckling which are intrinsic to the success of its feel. And ‘Enys Men’ is a full-on mood piece, where narrative gives way to wilful abstraction and hints of meaning.

What seems to be the tale of a volunteer on an unpopulated Cornish island (“Enys Men” is Cornish for “Stone Island”) taking the temperature of some flowers and dropping a stone down a mine shaft gradually evolves into something inscrutable, fascinating and disquieting. Past and present seemingly overlap increasingly and, for me, her world becomes a lost continent of ghosts generated by the stone. Or is she just going crazy in isolation? Or is she overwhelmed by and trapped in the uncanny? But don’t go looking for narrative and answers. It’s all hints and symbols.

Mike Muncer (Evolution of Horror) calls it ‘Penda’s Fen’ meets ‘the Lighthouse”, and that’s a fair description. A film of still images almost,  accumulating empty atmosphere, detractors say; certainly Keri O’Shea sees the aesthetic as free-floating to condescending aimlessness. If it hits your buttons, it’s a superior horror-inflected ambient genre piece of nightmare logic and the uncanny, with just a touch of body-horror.