Out of Brooklyn Horror, Jordan Downey’s The Cycle transcends genre labels with a willingness to play, experiment, and get a little freaky. Downey and co-writer Kevin Stewart plant the crime/thriller story firmly in well-nurtured thematic soil, allowing them to take big swings with a huge, satisfying pay-off. The film excavates matters of grief, forgiveness, unhealed childhood trauma, and the ravenous nature of humanity itself. Through blurring horror lines, The Cycle sifts the rubble of a broken spirit pushed to the brink with no point of return. Downey and his creative team make genre mutation look easy; it takes acrobatic precision to reveal cards as only completely necessary before screaming “full house!” to a packed table. Sometimes, you just need to revel in the mystery for a bit and make them want it. And boy, does Downey make the audience want it.
Meg (Deborah Ann Woll) investigates murder crime scenes, often helping police investigators put the pieces together. While working on a cold case, officer Ian (Will Hochman) reveals that her estranged father’s body has been discovered near two horrifically mangled bodies, with no clue how he got there. His body has been pristinely preserved, and once she does a preliminary autopsy, Meg learns that there’s just no way the corpse’s injuries occurred while he was alive. He must have been brutally tortured before, as she theorizes, he killed himself to escape the pain. But that’s only the beginning.
Her father’s body ignites a dangerous investigation into the lore of a branded tattoo on the right hand and how assumed animal maulings keep racking up bodies. Joni (Gretchen Corbett), Meg’s mother, knows much more than she lets on and becomes a crucial first piece to an unexplainable puzzle. Meg and the police squad eventually collect all the pieces; it’s a matter of putting them together correctly. What they don’t anticipate is that there’s truly something ungodly happening with the murders that no one could fathom.
Be warned: the film trailer gives away the main plot of the story. To be totally surprised, go in as blind as you can. Don’t anticipate. Don’t try to guess. Let Jordan Downey and the crew take you on a demented ride through the devilish underbelly of humanity. Woll delivers a powerful and visceral performance as a tragically shattered young woman who struggles with forgiveness and not having any cathartic outlet to reprimand her father for abandoning the family. Her layered portrayal of Meg is what Oscar-worthy contenders are made of.
Jordan Downey’s The Cycle keeps you on the line for as long as humanly possible. When the time is right, the writer/director releases the string, and all the viewer can do is take it all in. The film presents itself as a crime/thriller until it’s not. It’s only when Downey says so that The Cycle transforms into something else entirely.
