The Stylist

Najarra Townsend plays a hairstylist who alternates between sweet and psychotic in a film that's reminiscent of Franck Khalfoun's Maniac and Nicolas Winding Refn's The Neon Demon. Jill Gevargizian's audio-visual choices in the film really stand out - be it neon-esque colorscape or the prominently bassy soundtrack. Townsend, in the titular role, does most of the heavy lifting with a chillingly effective performance. The film gets a bit drab and overlong in its middle portions (especially that nightclub scene) but picks up again towards the end, even if the climax is something that you can foresee from a mile away. It may be an easy film to write off given the predictability aspect alone, however, the aesthetics deserve a double thumbs-up. The script deliberately doesn't focus on how well the hairstylist covers up her grisly murders; it delves more into her inner conflicts instead. All said and done, The Stylist is a film that offers different levels of satisfaction for different viewers.

Generic lead psycho without rhyme or reason murders pretty much anybody she meets. No motive, no specific reason for selection, just random unexplained psychotic breakdowns. Could've been a winner but the writing is terrible and it's jam packed of long repetitive scenes that do nothing to move the story or reveal anything deeper about the main character. Maniac, Sweeney Todd and even Lucky McKee's May do everything done here way better. Ultimately a unoriginal, paint by numbers story with a excruciatingly long and predictable finish. More like a photo shoot for bloody bride monthly than a worthwhile narrative.

Borrowing from some of the best character study horror films from the 60's and 70's, The Stylist seamlessly updates these tropes for the new age with lots of style and higher production values than expected for such a low budget film.

A lonely hairstylist takes to drugging some of her clients, scalping them, and storing said scalps in a creepy shrine underneath her house where she can put them on and pretend to be different people. She tries to shape up and stop doing this when a bride-to-be client books her for her wedding and the stylist believes this might be a true friendship in the making.

For most of its runtime, The Stylist plays like a modern mashup of Maniac, Repulsion, and May and it's anchored by a lovely performance by Najarra Townsend, who wisely underplays her character's mania. Most actresses would swing from the rafters and chew the scenery with a character like this, but she keeps her very grounded and true to life.

Townsend's performance helps fill in a lot of the script's flaws, because, as much as The Stylist seems to want us to relate for its lead character, it doesn't do an awful lot to endear her to us. We never figure out what made her start killing and collecting scalps and we never find out why she's so fixated on this particular bride-to-be. This does weaken the film and throw things off balance, because Townsend is playing the character as if she's in a nuanced character drama, but the film gives her even less development and motivation than some of the Friday the 13th sequels gave Jason.

At least The Stylist knows how to end a movie as it offers up one of the most memorable final horror film images of the past decade and the film itself is beautifully directed by Jill Gevargizian who has an excellent eye.

...The Demon Barber of Creep Street.

Not much to say, but this horror/drama about a mentally unfit hair stylist who cuts a little too deep gave me Stepfather II vibes, but mostly reminded me of the original Maniac from 1980 and Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer from 1986. Nothing wrong with that, it was enjoyable and everyone was spot on in their roles.

I would question the pacing and direction of the story even though it was easy to follow. At least the gore was decent. I even had to turn away in a few spots. The Lead, who looked way too much like Judy Greer, really sold the psycho.

Recommended.

I happened to stumble upon the 2020 horror drama "The Stylist" by sheer random luck in 2021. And I was immediately intrigued by the movie's cover. And reading the synopsis definitely made me more interested in watching the movie, as it sounded like this could potentially be something in the likes of the 2002 horror movie "May" starring Angela Bettis.

So of course I sat down to watch "The Stylist" given my fascination for all things horror, and also because it was a movie that I hadn't already seen.

"The Stylist" definitely was watchable and it was an interesting storyline. However, there was just something profound missing from the formula that was cooked up by writers Jill Gevargizian, Eric Havens and Eric Stolze. I can't really put my finger on it and say this is what was missing, but I just feel that the movie was missing a certain ingredient to make it an outstanding movie.

Now don't get me wrong here, because I am not saying that "The Stylist" is a bad movie or anything, because this was an entertaining movie and a watchable movie. It just failed to go that extra mile and become an extraordinary movie.

The storyline was pretty interesting, albeit it was suffering from being overly predictable. And that was something that definitely was holding the movie back a notch. But there are some pretty nice aspects to the storyline, and I really enjoyed the character gallery in the movie. Especially the movie's main character - the stylist Claire (played by Najarra Townsend). That character was really fleshed out nice, no pun intended.

"The Stylist" had a good ensemble of actresses and actors to portray the various characters and roles in the movie. And I was really impressed with the performance put on by lead actress Najarra Townsend in the role of Claire. Her performance was just right on the dot, and she really gave life to her character and made it a very realistic and believable character. In fact, her performance alone, makes it more than well worth sitting down to watching the movie.

However, the pacing of the storyline was serving as a cumbersome weight around the movie, holding it back. Why? Well, because it was rather monotonous and slow paced. Too little happened to make me feel fully engorged in the movie at all times. And it was a shame, because the storyline had so much potential, and Najarra Townsend really blew me away with her performance.

I will say that "The Stylist" is worth taking the time to sit down and watch if you have the time.

My rating of director Jill Gevargizian's 2020 movie "The Stylist" lands on a mediocre five out of ten stars. The movie would have rated much higher, if it had been better paced and more contents added to the storyline.