Movie Review: Her Private Hell

Picture Tokyo in an unspecified cyperpunk-y future. A strange mist has completely engulfed the city and within that candy-colored haze, lies an unholy masked entity with diamond-encrusted gloves known as "Leatherman" who goes around the city kidnapping and/or killing women. Unbeknownst to them, three American actors (Sophie Thatcher, Havana Rose Liu, Kristine Forseth) who are in town to shoot a sci-fi movie are about to be the become next targets of Leatherman. Meanwhile in the criminal underworld, an American solider (Charles Melton) is slicing his way through Yakuza shot callers with the intention of getting information that will help him track down Leatherman-who took his daughter years earlier. Will Leatherman claim some more souls before the mist fades or can he finally be thwarted? The answer for those who are curious to crack this supernatural crime spree, lies within the 110 minutes of this summer most uh, unique movie entitled Her Private Hell.

Her Private Hell marks the return of Nicolas Winding Refn to the world of movies after stepping away from the medium for a decade to make a pair of streaming miniseries (2019's Too Old to Die Young, 2023's Copenhagen Cowboy). If anybody that didn't watch his television shows was concerned that the Danish auteur who is loathed by most and revered by a vocal few had changed since The Neon Demon crashed into theaters in the summer of 2016, rest assured that this is the same NFR. Words like "plot", "writing", or "character development" are of little use here as Refn frantically cycles through a pretty sizable hodgepodge of genre aesthetics (noir, giallo, vigilante, surrealism, cyberpunk, psychosexual thriller, supernatural horror, family drama) with the hope that he'll be able to cast a hypnotic spell that can make up for how little is actually transpiring on screen. For the first 2/3's of the movie, it doesn't succeed in the slightest as the pacing is too meandering to build an atmosphere that's worth getting lost in. Then, out of nowhere at the top of the third act, all of the sex, violence and sleaziness the movie had been teasing with no tangible results finally coalesces into something that's completely fucking mesmerizing. It was like Refn suddenly realized that he should use the beautiful neon lighting and elaborate spaceman sets that he had at his disposal to engage in some psychedelic hedonism spiked with graphic violence for the final 30 minutes. While this incredible groove Refn settles into comes far too late into the movie to fully redeem Her Private Hell, it provided enough of a sugar rush to elevate it out of the gutter and into semi-respectable territory. Considering how little of I thought of it for the opening 70-75 minutes, this is a remarkable late game rally that assures that I will watch whatever silly surrealist bullshit Refn cooks up next. 

Grade: C