Will (Armie Hammer) is a bartender at a dive bar somewhere in New Orleans. His job is simple but he enjoys the work – serving the same set of regulars that become like a family always seemed to appeal to him, and he seemed to lack broader ambitions, with the opposite being true for his girlfriend, Carrie (Dakota Johnson), who has gone back to college and is actively pursuing a better future. One evening, there’s a particularly grisly fight that results in some major injuries to some of the patrons – but its nothing Will hasn’t dealt with before – as far as he’s concerned, these are the moments that keep his line of work interesting. However, nothing can prepare him for what’s to come after a group of mysterious college students leave behind a cellphone, which Will takes home in case the owner calls looking for it. Strange occurrences start happening, and the content on the phone suggests that it belongs to a group of people who found themselves involved in some sinister occult rituals, where they are forced into a position of submission to some otherworldly entity that communicates through the wounds it inflicts on those who find themselves inadvertently prey to its malicious nature. Suddenly, having been thrust into a situation he doesn’t want to be involved, Will has to fend off the forces of evil while not becoming part of it as well, which proves to be extremely difficult when a single man tries to take on something from another world, after having inadvertently unleashed some true malice into the world through his good deed.

Wounds is an extremely strange film. It isn’t something that you necessarily enjoy in any way – a visceral horror film that digs deep into the psychological state of the viewer and terrifies us on an almost metaphysical level, there’s not much to embrace about this film. This isn’t to suggest it’s not effective – it does have its flaws, but is mostly executes exactly what it intends to say without resorting to cheap horror cliches to sell itself. Hailing from director Babak Anvari, who previously proved to be a horror auteur to keep a keen eye on with his debut feature film, the astounding Under the Shadow, there was always going to be something about Wounds that would separate it from more populist horror fare, a more subdued but no less unsettling sense of narrative anarchy that only comes with the prioritization of the story rather than the frights. Perhaps not as successful as his previous film, Wounds sees Anvari venturing into discomforting territory, presenting us with an unhinged, often deeply disquieting story about ordinary people coming into contact with another world (or perhaps a part of our own we didn’t even know existed) through purely unintended means. It’s a film that may sometimes work better in concept than it does in execution (and certainly does find itself passing up many promising opportunities, including a climax that could have been one of the great horror film endings, but never actually reaches the coherent point that the story suggested it would), but when it comes to more experimental horror, we can tend to be somewhat easier on them, because in a genre so saturated with the same tropes, a film that dares to be different and unexpected can’t ever really be dismissed based on its flaws, especially when the merits, as difficult as they may be to appreciate at first, are what make it so worthwhile in the first place.

There’s a certain disparity underpinning Wounds in regards to how it approaches horror. The first half is very much more artistic than the conventional horror movie – brooding and atmospheric, the focus was most definitely on the mood of the piece, rather than being outright terrifying. The film builds up the main characters and situates them in the story, which will use these moments of foreshadowing later on in the film. This changes in the second half, where the film shifts to something far more unsettling, without actually descending into complete anarchy – the film understands its limitations, as well as the fact that it takes more than just complete chaos to create a terrifying film. It borrows heavily from the school of suspense, but it isn’t without its moments of genuine insanity as well. The film does opt for something a bit more directly sinister, which it executes through slow-burning suspense that works better when it paced and quiet than overtly intense. We’re currently in an era of New Wave Horror, where it is more auteur-driven, with stories that are infused with social commentary and deeper meanings towards the world around them, rather than just existing for the sake of terrifying viewers. Wounds doesn’t have the complexities of other similarly bleak horror films, but it still effectively makes use of its premise, which could have so easily been gauche or inappropriate without the restraint of a filmmaker who understands there’s more to horror than just what the viewer sees – the sounds, the atmosphere and the intentions all form an effective horror that may often be quite vague, but still manages to be unquestionably disconcerting, reflecting some of the more harrowing qualities of our species.

So much of Wounds focuses on the character of Will, and it does very well to distance him from other horror movie protagonists insofar as he is not just a mindless vessel through which we experience the horror, but rather a fully-formed character all on his own. Armie Hammer gives one of his best performances in the role (even those who aren’t enamoured with this film have tended to remark how Hammer is actually excellent), the rare film that offers him the opportunity to demonstrate his unique talents without the attention being shifted elsewhere. Its astounding that despite being in the industry for so many years, Hammer has rarely managed to wrangle leading roles, always having to settle for supporting characters that don’t normally give him the space to show himself as being just as adept at commanding a film as his contemporaries. Will is a remarkably complex character, but still someone who seems to be relatively normal, which is important in a film that relies so heavily on the unhinged repercussions of a particularly foolish mistake. The interesting elements in the performance come not in the broad actions, but the smaller moments, where Hammer has to counteract the sometimes relentlessly dark subject matter with a more subdued performance. Its not a difficult character to play, but with Hammer’s intensity, it becomes one that makes a considerable impact, because his dashing good looks, subtle intelligence and genial (but not submissive) personality work well when portraying a character that isn’t supposed to be overly unique, but still compelling enough for the audience to have a real connection with him.

When we break it down and consider its individual qualities, it’s possible to look at exactly how Wounds operates as a fascinating horror film – not necessarily completely innovative, it does stand on its own merits, being far more ambigious, and sometimes even more despicable, than most other films in the genre. It embraces fewer of the cliches and chooses to mainly focus on the horrifying recesses very few films would ever dare venture near. Ultimately, like many of the other auteur-driven horror films that have become so popular over the past few years, Wounds isn’t trying to be entertaining at all. Its scares aren’t thrilling but rather disconcerting enough to make even the most acclimated viewers want to retreat. It’s also very economical with the visual terror – there are less than a dozen moments of legitimate horror, which prevents them from being saturated or predictable, as well as entirely unexpected because you never quite know which nasty surprises this film has planned. You’d not be blamed for not wanting to go further with this film – its a singularly unpleasant experience, but one that definitely warrant experiencing, because something that manages to so effectively incite such a visceral reaction into the viewer is going to be worthwhile, and while it is remarkably difficult to get through, it can’t be dismissed as anything other than a daring attempt to capture true terror in its purest form. It may not always succeed as well as it could have, but it amounts to something that may be rough around the edges, but still has its own unconventional charms that work towards making this a remarkably interesting example of contemporary horror.