It’s been a long, slow slog but after years of market research and audience studies, as well as the success of films like The Substance, those who bankroll horror movies have finally accepted an incontrovertible fact: that women consume the genre not just because they’re along for the ride, but as a primary audience who want to see their own fears and anxieties at the dead centre. And we’re here for it, as the kids say, although this inevitably means there will be a fair amount of shonky, slapdash gynocentric horror on offer, often with generous side portions of eat-the-rich resentment.
This teen-focused feature film, like recent hot-mess TV series The Beauty, is a case in point. Directed by Nancy Leopardi and written by Jonathan Bernstein and James Greer (who wrote Steven Soderbergh’s Unsane), The Cure is a fable of poor little rich girl loneliness that has lots of smart ideas, but cuts its narrative corners a little too tightly to take it up to the next level.
