Muristek
Held review – claustrophobic thriller is Squid Games does marriage counselling
Gender relations are under the microscope in this thriller in which a couple are locked in a house and ordered about by an anonymous voice
If Squid Game did marriage guidance counselling, it might look like this huis-clos, horror-flecked psychological mystery-thriller, which takes place almost entirely in the confines of a high-spec rental house hired by a couple on their anniversary hoping to pep up their flagging relationship. After a few nightcaps on their first evening together, writer Emma (Jill Awbrey, who also scripted) and husband Henry (Bart Johnson) fall unconscious. They wake up locked in and fitted with behind-the-ear implants that deliver agonising pain if they don’t comply with the distorted voice that – initially via a rotary phone, then through speakers around the house – bids them: “You must obey!”
Weirdly, what the voice wants is to educate them in the ways of old-fashioned, courteous coupledom. “A man should open the door for his wife,” it says, before having them get into their glad rags and forcing Emma to prepare dinner. As this matrimonial-minded malefactor puts them through their paces, revealing personal secrets on the way, it’s unclear if he truly is a stickler for sincerity and consideration, or with this coerced parody of marriage is dragging them bleeding and screaming towards the realisation that the entire institution is a sham.
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