Under the silver lake is the answer to the, largely unasked, question: what happens if you take Rear Window, Mulholland Drive and They Live, splice them together like a Human Centipede and have the whole thing navigated by the character embodiment of listening to a Belle and Sebastian song on repeat after a two day cocaine binge?
It’s exactly the kind of film I hate. Except the part where I don’t hate it.
There’s Hitchcockian stylings aplenty up top that get largely jettisoned in favour of the Lynchean freakshow of the second act before devolving into a bat-shit, Lizard people conspiracy nightmare. All this is delivered with a nudge, a wink, and a gluttonous embarrassment of references.
Garfield is by turns twitchy, stoned, creepy, vulnerable and dangerous as he takes us on a sexy-cool journey through a world of madness. Possibly a mad journey through a sexy-cool world.
Throughout the slightly baggy 2 hour plus runtime I kept expecting myself to be bored or annoyed or really annoyed, but it just kept on entertaining me just enough.
Reviews have been extremely mixed, and understandably so, but (perhaps on the back of residual good will from It Follows) I thoroughly enjoyed spending some time as a paranoid nutjob.
Verdict: 4 Shiny cates for you sire