It's common for mainstream audiences to get angry with good arthouse horror movies. The likes of The Witch, Midsommar, and Mother! earned strong reviews from critics but received poor grades from general audiences due to their slow pace and unconventional nature. Pray for the marketing people at Focus Features, then, because how on Earth are they going to convincingly sell the public on an art-horror movie as genuinely disappointing as You Won't Be Alone?
If you were to judge You Won't Be Alone by its trailer, you'd expect a film filled with ratcheting tension -- not a traditional horror film, but certainly something comparable to The Witch or Under the Skin. On a narrative level, those are both strong comparisons. You Won't Be Alone shares The Witch's recapturing of historical fears and Under the Skin's arc of a beautiful yet monstrous being learning what it means to be human. You Won't Be Alone sounds like a great story but falters in its execution.
Director Goran Stolevski is trying far too hard to replicate the style of a Terrence Malick movie with You Won't Be Alone. This isn't merely "Malick-influenced" in the way filmmakers like Zack Snyder and Chloe Zhao might occasionally ape a shot or idea from Malick but still work with their distinctive styles. You Won't Be Alone is borrowing so heavily from the style of the Badlands and Tree of Life director that it would almost come off as a parody if it weren't so dead-faced serious.
Malick, of course, has never explored 19th-century Macedonian witches who transform into the people they kill. You Won't Be Alone gets some creativity points for thinking to apply his style of handheld nature montages and whispery philosophical voiceover to this gruesome material. However, Malick's style is designed to add a degree of abstract poetry to more grounded stories. Telling a fairy tale narrative in this form runs the risk of becoming so out there that it becomes difficult to connect to emotionally.
For some viewers who can get on its wavelength, You Won't Be Alone's story might be a moving experience. However, there are many obstacles for the viewer to overcome -- ranging from the confusing syntax the main witch speaks in (or at least is translated as speaking in via the subtitles) to the cheesiness of the burn makeup worn by her mother-witch. The idea of multiple actors playing the same character in different forms is interesting, but it withholds the chance of any individual to make the dramatic impact Scarlett Johansson did in Under the Skin.
Maybe it would have worked better if the film as a whole were more beautiful visually. The cinematography isn't bad, but for all the ways it imitates Malick's camera movements, the images captured are rarely as stunning. However, the film does have a truly unique visual idea, the method through which the witch transforms. You Won't Be Alone's transformation scene is captivatingly creepy the first time it's shown but then offers diminishing returns after that. Despite its gruesome violence, You Won't Be Alone seems unconcerned with being remotely scary. That choice might be okay if it succeeded as a drama, but its derivative style makes it hard to connect with on that level as well.
You Won't Be Alone premiered at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival and opens in theaters on April 1.