Tripwire Reviews Nightmare Alley

Carnival Of Desires

Tripwire’s editor-in-chief Joel Meadows takes a look at Guillermo del Toro’s latest film, Nightmare Alley, in UK cinemas now…

Nightmare Alley
Director: Guillermo del Toro
Stars: Bradley Cooper, Rooney Mara, Cate Blanchett, Toni Collette, Willem Dafoe

The last film from fantasy film master Guillermo del Toro was The Shape Of Water, back in 2017. He won an Oscar for that so his star has risen significantly since.

Nightmare Alley, almost five years later, based on the novel by William Lindsay Gresham, is a classic noir tale about manipulative carny Stanton Carlisle, played by Bradley Cooper and his rise and fall. Nightmare Alley has been brought to the big screen once before in 1947 with Tyrone Power although I admit I have never seen this version.

Nightmare Alley is unusual among del Toro productions as there are no supernatural elements but it is no less powerful because of their absence. Its theme about running from the past and how you are trapped by your fate is an effective one which permeates the film from start to finish.

The look of the film is incredible with production designer Tamara Deverell bringing the worlds that Carlisle inhabits, from the brutal, slippery Demi monde of the carnival filled with monsters happy to denigrate their fellow human beings to the environment outside which del Toro shows to be just as duplicitous and untrustworthy, to real vivid life. Nightmare Alley just drips atmosphere with every frame. 

Cooper is exceptional here as Carlisle, the dramatic heart of Nightmare Alley, drawing the naive Molly Cahill (Rooney Mara) into his decaying orbit. Carlisle meets his match in psychiatrist Dr Lilith, played with such wonderful aloofness by Cate Blanchett.

The rest of the cast, to be expected in a del Toro film, is top notch too: from regular Ron Perlman as carnival performer Bruno to fellow carny, the wonderfully named Clem Hoatley, played by Willem Defoe and even millionaire Ezra Grindle (Richard Jenkins), who Carlisle attempts to swindle for financial advantage but this backfires rather horribly. 

Co-screenwriter Kim Morgan brings her own strengths to the script as well here and the film has a range of strong female characters on display.

There is a richness and an ambition here that is lacking in so many modern films and del Toro manages to fold in influences like Hitchcock, Bunuel, Franju and even Bergman while still keeping it feeling fresh, new and very much his own work. Nightmare Alley is an extremely Gothic experience too, not unusual for the director, with very few really sympathetic characters and settings which are bold and dramatic.

As with most of his films, it won’t attract a huge audience but in some ways, this is unimportant. Despite winning his Oscar for The Shape Of Water, Nightmare Alley still comes across like a classic del Toro production without him feeling like he has to pander to an audience only familiar with his last film.

The running time is two and a half hours but it never flags and it is very well-paced. Carlisle’s fate seems likely from the start but the journey he goes on as a character is a fascinating one and Cooper again displays his versatility as an actor. 

After almost thirty years as a director, del Toro has lost none of his flair and pizzazz for making films that exploit the most engaging facets that cinema has to offer.

Nightmare Alley is a bold, exciting, inventive and visually beguiling thriller which ideally should be caught on the big screen if possible.

Nightmare Alley is in cinemas in the UK now. Here’s its trailer