Opus marks a major turning point for the direction of ‘Elevated Horror Films’. Head of Reviews Robert Flynn details why A24’s latest horror flick is one of their least cohesive.
The last decade of ‘Elevated Horror’ films has given cinema some of its most exciting directorial voices as well as multiple totemic, modern horror classics. They’re horror films, but elevated, meaning that there may be a metaphor or two sprinkled amongst the gore and tragedy. Production company A24 have been the main figureheads who have spearheaded this movement throughout the years, introducing audiences to the likes of Ari Aster and Jane Schoenbrun. Their latest addition to the subgenre, Opus (2025), has all of the trademarks and narrative tropes that reoccur across the elevated horror catalogue.
Unfortunately, Opus falls in line with a new wave of films such as The Watchers (2024) and Heretic (2024), aligning themselves as elevated horror films with some very heavy handed dialogue and piercingly evident metaphors. These films are all flashing warning signs that the nadir of elevated horror films is upon us.
In Opus, Moretti (John Malkovich), a deeply mysterious and beloved pop star, decides to make his return to music after disappearing from the limelight for almost 30 years. In what seems to be typical Moretti, ostentatious fashion, he wishes for the release of his album to be a major, artistic event. Ariel (Ayo Edebiri) is an eager culture journalist who continuously struggles to break through the barriers placed before her by her ignorant editor Stan (Murray Bartlett). After Moretti announces his return to music, Ariel is unexpectedly invited to his large and gated estate, along with several other nondescript celebrities, to interview Moretti and be given the opportunity to be among the first few people to be witness to Moretti’s magnum opus: an album called ‘Caesar’s Request’. With unlimited and intimate access to Moretti himself, Ariel hopes to write a profile that could define her career.
In typical fashion for a contemporary horror film about an insular community, the vibes of Moretti’s gated estate are cultish. Members of his estate all clothe themselves in the same denim garb and wear an eerily passive smile that is reinforced with a stilted performance. Moretti has established a religion, one that values creative genius above all else.
Opus is about the false allure of fame and the destructive pursuit of artistic excellence, two thematic concerns that writer and director Mark Anthony Green makes glaringly clear through various monologues, visual motifs and verbose dialogue very early on in his directorial debut. What is most damning about Green’s film is how his thematic motifs never interact with his narrative or choice of genre. Green’s musings about the pursuit of creative perfection predominantly exist within odd, overlong dialogue exchanges that re-assert the same thesis repeatedly. There is no addition or nuance to each conversation which often makes for a maddening experience.
The celebrities that join Ariel during her stay at the Moretti estate serve little to no purpose either, often existing simply to be sporadically murdered, a perfunctory attempt to remind the audience that amongst the meandering, empty narrative, there is indeed a horror movie taking place. It’s a particularly frustrating choice that wastes the talent of film icons Juliette Lewis and John Malkovich, two 90s Hollywood icons that are due for a comeback. Ayo Edebiri becomes lost amongst the mess too, never being given anything of note in her first leading role. Each performance feels incongruous with one another, everyone evidently trying to find the right pitch for the film, some seemingly trying to display some comedic tones while others try to heighten the severity. One can only imagine that Green’s script offered very little direction.
What makes Opus feel as though the elevated horror trend has met its logical conclusion is how it can often feel like a satirisation of the films that have led to its creation. The Midsommar-esque setting meshing with the unsubtle dialogue of an Alex Garland film all amongst the usual aesthetics found in an A24 horror film: Opus is the culmination of everything that the subgenre has been criticized for. For a film that is so deeply concerned with detailing how obsessed one can become with perfecting artistic pursuits, it is ironic that the entire runtime is riddled with unoriginal, rehashed ideas: Opus is far from what its title may suggest.