There have been quite a few masterpieces of atmospheric horror in the last decade such as Sleep Has Her House (Scott Barley) and The Lighthouse (Robert Eggers) and there are those I haven't seen. But so far, The Neon Demon is my favourite among them. I have noticed that a common criticism here is that this film is all style over substance. But what is "substance" in this context (and "substance" is not an universally quantified notion anyway)? The Neon Demon is not supposed to be a detailed account or a story. It is not something where the director is trying to spook you gradually to make way for the big spook. In fact, even when the film is over, there's nothing explicitly indicative of what comprises or drives the core theme: The Neon Demon. It is not an antagonist, but an abstract apparition of Shakespearean failure; and The Neon Demon is the product of pride, greed and ambition. It does not have any corporeality, nor it has any specific causality. These things are innate in the human condition. Rather than any conventional notion of "substance", The Neon Demon is best understood as a highly stylised study on human evil, which itself is not a universally definable "substance", but core ideas that manifest in various styles. And evil takes the high fashion style here. Hence, Refn's treatment of the plot with all the flashy cinematography is perfectly congruent to what the film is trying to achieve. 

• Written on 17 Dec 2025