
A Journalist’s Nightmare: Opus Is a Punchy but Predictable Cult Horror
Film Reviews
Sundance Film Review: Opus
Director: Mark Anthony Green
A24, MACRO, Makeready
Premiere: 01.24
It’s a tale as old as my favorite early-2000s rom-coms: A young female journalist with a terrible boss is still waiting for her first “real” story to come along, wanting desperately for something (or someone) to spice up her boring life. In Opus, our protagonist gets her wish, though not in the way she expects.
Ariel Ecton (Ayo Edebiri, The Bear, Bottoms) is a 27-year-old writer who’s constantly belittled at work and tired of being “middle as fuck.” However, the special someone who changes her life is not a hot, cocky advertising executive nor a dreamy teacher at her undercover reporting job, but a legendary musician with a murderous streak. Having just announced the arrival of “the greatest album ever made” after 30 years outside the public eye, Alfred Moretti (John Malkovich, Being John Malkovich, Of Mice and Men) is peculiarly intrigued by Ariel.
Among the elite group of media veterans invited to hear the album at his remote compound in Green River, Utah, Ariel is the odd one out. There’s her editor boss (Murray Bartlett, The White Lotus), a TV host (Juliette Lewis, Cape Fear), an influencer (Stephanie Suganami), a paparazzo (Melissa Chambers) and a podcaster (Mark Sivertsen). They are joined by Moretti’s spiritual sycophants known as “Levelists,” whose behavior is sufficiently creepy but whose doctrine is never satisfyingly explained.
Moretti is not quite flamboyant enough to be Elton John nor talented enough to be Prince, but he’s just eccentric and campy enough to be a modern-day Willy Wonka, and Malkovich really sells it. In one scene, he writhes on the floor in a frenzied bout of storytelling as his followers cheer in unison. The pop messiah’s star power is amplified by Shirley Kurata’s futuristic glam-rock costume design and Nile Rodgers and The-Dream’s silly, danceable original music. Meanwhile, Edebiri plays the same anxious, dry-witted character she always does, and she does it well. Her reactions to the Levelists’ bizarre habits make up the bulk of the film’s comedic moments, and though Ariel is a classic final girl in many ways, writer-director Mark Anthony Green gets credit for making her street smart rather than ditzy.
All in all, Opus is an amusing jaunt through familiar territory. It’s Midsommar (an isolated, murderous cult in the charming countryside) meets Ingrid Goes West (the darkly comedic side of celebrity worship) meets Get Out (I wanted to scream “Get out!” at Ariel the whole time). Forgive me for all the movie namedropping, but it’s impossible to watch Opus without feeling attacked from all sides by borrowed tropes and well-worn themes. While the horror-comedy capitalism critique was once interesting, between The Menu, Glass Onion and Blink Twice, the market has been so oversaturated to the point that new additions to the catalog border on self-parody: Uh oh, something’s amiss at the private estate of our mysterious rich host! Yeah, no shit.
That said, despite the overdone premise and recurring clichés (confiscated phones and voodoo dolls and mass suicide, oh my!), the ending poses questions that anyone who works in media should consider: Is a good story worth the risk of glorifying and publicizing something terrible? Can you responsibly inform the public without using a story to your own benefit? Green is a former GQ editor himself, and while his bylines are less “tell-all cult exposé” and more “what to do with all your skinny jeans,” these are questions that all journalists have probably asked themselves at one time or another. Opus doesn’t have all the answers, but it will leave you with a more nuanced understanding of journalistic ethics than How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days. —Asha Pruitt
Read more of SLUG’s coverage of the 2025 Sundance Film Festival.