A unique if uneven take of supernatural horror told through the veil of existentialism that is frustrating, beguiling and eventually emotionally rewarding. The film follows the story of a young woman who is kidnapped from her mother by a wolf-eateress, rendered mute and then turned into a shape-shifting demon. We see her inhabit various characters from women, men, creatures and even children through the years as she mimics them and learn about her life through the process.
Shot through a contemplative lens and told through voice-over, writer/director Goran Stolevski tries to imbue the beauty of humanity through the quest of the young woman and for the most part, he succeeds. The film is gorgeously shot with an ethereal sliver of hope and grit that highlights the beauties of the world as well the inner conflicts of the main character – in awe of the world and yet misanthropic of life.
And due to the nature of the story, the young woman is played by various actors (including Carloto Cotta, Sara Kilmoska, Noomi Rapace, Alice Englert and others) and they all inhabit the role with impressive physicality as they fight through explore sexuality, misogyny and human interaction. The content of the film is hard to watch more due to human behaviour than seeing horror genre functions like bloodletting and disembowelling – even when we see various actors play the same role, we still get into the heart of our lead character from the very beginning.
The flaws of the film are the obtrusive voiceover (Macedonian language, in gnomic English subtitles) that explains far too much from its overuse and the near two-hour runtime that can become quite tedious due to its repetition in the narrative – there can be too many moments of disembowelling and transforming.
Overall, You Won’t Be Alone is a surprisingly humanistic and poetic horror experience that will delight those who are expecting something different from the genre.
FOUR STARS (OUT OF FIVE)
You Won’t Be Alone screened as part of this year’s Sundance Film Festival, which is being presented virtually between January 20th and 30th, 2022. For more information head to the official Sundance page.
