Shudder exclusives grow stronger and stronger, with a better reach for bigger talents. Nocebo holds within it Eva Green, Mark Strong and an interesting premise. This is Shudder, though, so somewhere within the film will mark a monumentally flawed and unsteady execution of either its setting, narrative or script. What a satisfying pairing this all is, it was bound to explode one way or another. A force this mighty under the Shudder brand cannot maintain itself with such consistency for so long. As subtle as a blow to the back of the skull, and the confused concussion that follows through feels right at home. She’s in Fashion, one Suede song once went, but Nocebo marks itself as a rebuttal of poor side effects of a life wracked with unknown guilt.
Folklore majesties are instrumental in playing off Nocebo as a borderline supernatural thriller rather than a general medical drama befitting of a Holby City double bill. Sightings and terrors approach and contract at whim in a feature that does not feel as though it deserves the build-up it attempts to toy with. Nocebo is far too quick to give away its game, almost immediately, actually. Green struggles to make this work, the show don’t tell mentality not quite working its magic in a film that hopes medium-range shots of empty and isolated people will be enough to convey that emotive core present in illnesses. It is not, and the horror comes more from what Nocebo will attempt to destroy next rather than anything else.
Its passage of time is consistent, though. There are chilling and satisfying interactions that feel unhinged and unique, replicating a nice feeling otherwise showcased in the Netflix original, Jarvis Cocker-starring The House from the start of the year. How far the mighty can fall, as Green showcases through a flash-cut that cuts out all the gritty and grim details that usually linger around a horror feature. Gone is any element of suspense though, the audience knows both cause and effect before any of the hallucinations of home living are shown. Its commentary is poor and how it gets there is even poorer. Factory conditions are criminal, horrifying endeavours that everyone is aware of but not doing much about. For Nocebo to showcase the rising tide of ethical disease is to contain it not in the broader picture but in an individual. Should an individual, knowing or not, be held responsible? It all comes down to the wolf that features right back at the start. Scarred and tattered by fire and a grim admittance of passive problems.
Nocebo has no grace to its implication, no fundamental ability to engage with its meaning. A pathetic schism into the formation of new life is attempted, but by then Nocebo has shovelled through its dead birds, burnt dogs and severe implications of the fashion industry ethics. Lorcan Finnegan strikes out again, his blunt force trauma of observant criticism another weak blow, weaker than Vivarium, absolutely, but not far off the mark of snobbish attempts at showing what is wrong with the world, while likely still engaging with those same problems anyway. That is the line that fails to be drawn here in a confused and meandering piece of horror flab. Cyclical horrors are just that, cyclical, and Finnegan marks a second, notably mediocre feature attempting to criticise that. Audiences already know, it is the how they must wonder, or at the very least, the why. Neither are mused on, the shockwave spectrum is apparently enough for Finnegan and his vanity project.
