Stoker

I saw the trailer for Stoker and wondered if it was a horror movie as it looks dark and definitely scary, and as we all know if it’s a horror film I ain’t watching it! However it’s billed as a psychological thriller so that reassured me somewhat. The premise of the film is that family patriarch Richard Stoker (Dermot Mulroney) dies and Uncle Charlie (Matthew Goode) moves in with Richard’s daughter India (Mia Wasikowska) and her emotionally unstable mother, Evelyn (Nicole Kidman). Charlie is an enigmatic and sinister character but India and Evelyn soon find themselves drawn to him. The film has been likened to a Hitchcock thriller with Guardian film critic Jeremy Kay saying, “Literary references and symbolism abound in Stoker. You can get tied up trying to figure out who is what. That is the idea. All the clues are there. You just have to look closely.”

The film is directed by Park Chan-wook, the Korean director best known for The Vengeance Trilogy, and Stoker marks his English language debut. The screenplay was written by Wentworth Miller, a model and actor known for his starring role in TV series Prison Break. With a score by Clint Mansell (Darren Aronofsky’s musical collaborator) and decidedly gothic cinematography by Chung-hoon Chung, Stoker is a movie I definitely plan to go see over the weekend.