As a lifetime fan of the horror genre, there is nothing I hate more than when a horror movie treats its female characters as “scream queens” and victims of the creature or the serial killer lurking in the shadows, while the men do the heavy lifting. That’s why it’s so refreshing when a male director, in this case Jordan Downey, comes up with The Cycle, a movie that refuses to lean into the same old, same old monster-movie tropes, and he actually builds the entire premise around the intellect and the history of a capable, smart female protagonist.
Deborah Ann Woll plays Meg, a highly established forensic anthropologist who spends her days training FBI agents. Clinical, structured, and entirely in control, she allows herself to give in to her emotions only in private. However, when a newly discovered corpse lands on her table, it shatters her academic bubble: the body belongs to her father, who vanished 36 years ago. This shocking discovery pulls her out of her straightforward world and into a small-town nightmare, where a mother and daughter have just been brutally butchered by what the locals presume is a wild animal.
What I loved most about Meg and how the movie is bulit is that, when faced with her own father’s body, she doesn’t dissolve into tears or standard horror-movie hysterics. Contrary to how women are usually treated in this type of movie, she is capable of making a clear distinction between her role as a forensic professional and the role of the abandoned daughter standing over her decaying father’s body. She processes her grief through her job. She looks at bone fragments, wound patterns, and biological data, treating a literal supernatural threat like a puzzle that can be solved with science. All the emotional baggage she may carry is shown only when she’s alone, in the hotel room, in the dark. When she’s out, doing her job, she’s the embodiment of the objective professional expert.
Jordan Downey wraps the whole story in a heavy, oppressive fog which acts like a mirror to what’s going on inside Meg’s head. She doesn’t know what to think because nothing is what it seems about her father’s body and the other victims she comes across. She’s also facing an internal battle between what the world expects her to feel and her detachment. The visual contrast between the sterile, cold examination room and the chaotic, brutal violence of this creature is incredibly striking. It elevates the movie from a standard creature feature into a genuinely unsettling look at hereditary grief.
There is also a fantastic, understated dynamic between Meg and her estranged mother, a retired geophysicist. Having these two women come from scientific fields dedicated to digging secrets out of the earth serves as a brilliant metaphor. They are uniquely equipped to unearth what was meant to stay hidden, both topographically and emotionally. Much like her mother, who was left to clean up the fallout of her husband’s sudden disappearance, Meg is now tasked with unpacking her father’s literal baggage by examining his remains. By the time the brutal third act hits, Meg’s reliance on pure logic gets pushed to its absolute breaking point. The creature itself feels less like a random monster and more like a terrifying manifestation of the cyclical trauma passed down through her family.
I have tried my hardest not to spoil this movie, but I have to mention that I was extremely impressed with this new take on an already established horror subgenre. The Cycle even had me crying by the end, because just like Meg, I also had to face the fact that this movie isn’t what it seems. Also, it left me with a lingering sense of dread that had less to do with whatever was lurking in the dark and more to do with the heavy things we inherit from our parents. It’s an intense and deeply cerebral horror film that proves the genre is at its absolute best when it focuses on the minds of its characters.
