Reviews: The Neon Demon (2016) Movie Review
Genres: Horror, Thriller, Drama, Demons
Subgenres: Featured Psychological, Psychological, Drama, Giallo, Teens
Exploring The Neon Demon (2016) through our review, we cover its story, scares, and how it fits into the broader horror genre landscape.
The Neon Demon (2016) is a 1h 57-min France/Denmark/USA psychological thriller that was shot in several locations in California, USA. Director and writer Nicolas Winding Refn (Drive (2011), Bronson (2008), Only God Forgives (2013)) did a fantastic job executing this film with a stunning landscape. Nicholas did a lot of great things with The Neon Demon, but he also did a lot of forgettable things including giving us anything new but the protagonist journey which leads the movie to be a shallow experience.
The Neon Demon revolves around beautiful, youthful Jesse, who is an underage aspiring model in Los Angeles. Jesse (Elle Fanning - Maleficent (2014), The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008), Super 8 (2011), Deja Vu (2006)) is in great danger with some dangerous females who is capable of murdering her. Jesse made friends with makeup artist Ruby (Jena Malone - Contact (1997), Into the Wild (2007), Pride & Prejudice (2005), Sucker Punch (2011)) on her first photo shoot in Los Angeles. Ruby tries to be Jesse’s protector as Jesse tries to flourish in her career which is dangerous since she is young with a fresh face and her beauty makes the other models feel threatened. Sarah (Abbey Lee - Mad Max: Fury Road (2015), Gods of Egypt (2016), Ruben Guthrie (2015)) and Gigi (Bella Heathcote - Dark Shadows (2012), Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (2016), In Time (2011)) are threatened by Jesse.
Jesse won the hearts of everyone not competing with her. She was asked to be the highlight of a fashion show that Sarah was also auditioning for. Sarah was devastated while Jesse was so ecstatic that she accidentally cut her hand, and Sarah tries to drink her blood. Ruby stopped protecting Jesse after her personality changed with her fame and after Ruby could not get what she wanted from Jesse.
I gave this movie a five because the visual effects were purely amazing, great moments/scenes, the juxtaposition of color palettes, haunting black backgrounds, and special effects. I gave this film a five because how visually beautiful is it and also because the cinematographer needs a round of applause because she did an excellent job capturing Los Angeles vividly. The raw nightclub necrophilic s** scenes were so not needed. I wish the director had spent more time to give us a satisfying storyline with character arcs. I was grossed out when I saw Ruby with the corpse. The actors gave average performances, but the movie did not have much of a storyline to feel emotions toward the characters. I would recommend viewers to watch this film for the visual feast it has to offer and nothing else.
Similar films like The Neon Demon can be found in demon movies sub-genre(s), check them out for more movies like The Neon Demon.
Sources Used to Shape This Review
Insights in this review are drawn from director interviews, fan commentary, production notes, and long-form breakdowns across genre-specific platforms. Content is written uniquely and reviewed for accuracy.
- The Neon Demon Rating Scores
- Our Score: 5/10
- Overall Score: 5.46/10
- IMDB: 6.1/10
- MetaCritic: 5.1/10
- Rotten Tomatoes: 5.9/10
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