Her Private Hell Review: Nicolas Winding Refn’s Arthouse Horror with Sophie Thatcher and Charles Melton is a Dreamy, Violent Masterpiece
Cannes Film Festival: Co-starring Kristine Froseth, Havana Rose Liu, and Diego Calva, Refn’s follow-up to The Neon Demon explores a futuristic metropolis plagued by a killer known as the Leather Man
by Alex Kaan 19 May 2026
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Nicolas Winding Refn is back from the dead. As he told the crowd at the Cannes premiere of his first film in a decade, his heart stopped beating for over 20 minutes during surgery. The Danish auteur left the experience reinvigorated and determined to make his first movie in a decade, and the result is brimming with the vulnerable energy of a rebirth. With shades of Drive and The Neon Demon, Her Private Hell is an archetypal Refn film stripped bare and stretched into a moody, poetic horror opera dressed in blood and leather. The meandering pace and abstract mystique ensure it will dramatically divide audiences and critics alike, but this is bold filmmaking to let wash over you.
A lush, neon-drenched melodrama with the feel of a darkly beautiful nightmare, Her Private Hell is a spellbinding work of horror cinema anchored by Pino Donaggio’s gorgeous orchestral score and the magnetic presence of leads Sophie Thatcher and Charles Melton. Set in a foggy, futuristic reimagining of Tokyo, the film follows Elle (Thatcher), a young movie star preparing to star in a kitschy Barbarella-style sci-fi. Her co-stars include ditzy influencer-type Hunter (Kristine Froseth) and—a doozy of a character—her former-best-friend-turned-stepmother, Dominique (Havana Rose Liu). As Elle explains it, her enigmatic father, Johnny Thunders (Dougray Scott), thinks sleeping with women her age will bring them closer together.
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Unfolding as a wholly unique cocktail of the giallo and slow cinema, Her Private Hell doesn’t rely much on traditional narrative, but Johnny Thunders introduces the lynchpin of the hazy plot through a grim bedtime story. As the sci-fi film’s cast listens intently in a lavish room coloured by deep shades of blue and pink, Johnny tells them the story of the Leather Man, a towering figure dressed head-to-toe in his namesake material. Also known as Leather King, or simply the Devil, he returns from the underworld along with an oppressive mist, determined to find the daughter he once lost and prone to killing any young woman he finds in his path. The Leather Man links Elle’s story to that of Private K. (Charles Melton), a stoic American GI bent on revenge against the figure.
A resounding highlight is the deliciously twisted movie star triangle loaded with jealousy and sapphic tension. Havana Rose Liu is a standout as a glamorous evil stepmom, and Kristine Froseth delights as a fame-hungry starlet, while Sophie Thatcher is sensational in a raw yet ethereal central performance. She is matched by Charles Melton, who imbues his Yakuza-fighting, full-blown action hero with a hardened tenderness reminiscent of Ryan Gosling’s turn in Drive.
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The performances, characterised by dialogue delivered with measured, breathy slowness, will grate some viewers, but even its detractors will admit that Her Private Hell is a visual feast. Production designer Gitte Malling and cinematographer Mangus Nordenhof Jonck have created painterly imagery often captured in patient, considered long-takes. And despite the film’s many carefully crafted elements, none of them would work without Pino Donaggio’s rich score—the kind of detailed, expressive symphonic music that you rarely hear today in film, and which can be comfortably placed alongside his best work, from Carrie to Blow-Out.
An intoxicating genre-bending horror melodrama led by a superb cast, Her Private Hell is a triumphant return for Nicolas Winding Refn.