In Fabric
A24 | Release Date: December 6, 2019 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
81
METASCORE
Universal acclaim based on 29 Critic Reviews
Positive:
28
Mixed:
1
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
The New York TimesGlenn KennyDec 5, 2019
The film spaces out several nasty and effective frights. And as its narrative seems to deliberately devolve into a dissociative dream, even the funny material hits with a choke in the throat. Read full review
100
The TelegraphRobbie CollinJul 2, 2019
As In Fabric transitions from one plot to the next, it is as if the film itself is nodding off, in order to reach a conclusion a conscious mind could never have found. The effect is wholly and deliberately bewildering, both in the moment and for days and nights afterwards. Read full review
100
CineVueChristopher MachellJul 2, 2019
Taking its cues from the cinema of Dario Argento and Italian horror, In Fabric, gives audiences the best British horror film since Don’t Look Now. Read full review
100
Time OutJoshua RothkopfJun 4, 2019
Enveloping you in its vintage folds, Peter Strickland's hypnotic horror film turns fashion into a death sentence. Read full review
90
Los Angeles TimesJustin ChangSep 15, 2018
In Fabric unfolds in a twilight zone where capitalism is a kind of dark magic, people become slaves to shopping, and the language of corporate-speak casts its own cultish spell. Read full review
90
The Hollywood ReporterKeith UhlichSep 10, 2018
No one makes movies like Peter Strickland. Read full review
90
VarietyPeter DebrugeSep 10, 2018
There’s no reason a movie about a devil dress should work, and yet Strickland strikes the right tone, inviting laughter by taking it all so seriously. Read full review
88
RogerEbert.comSimon AbramsDec 5, 2019
Strickland frequently tests viewers’ patience, but his off-putting sensibility is powerful enough to make In Fabric as mesmerizing as its subject: salesmanship as a sinister, inescapable form of hypnosis. Read full review
88
Movie NationRoger MooreDec 3, 2019
In Fabric takes a while to settle in, and that goes for the viewing experience, too. It takes a few minutes for us to surf the wave Strickland wants us on, to get in sync with the vibe he’s going for...But rare is the horror movie that finds off-the-rack laughs in everything from ’70s fashions and consumerism to ’70s British sex and slang, and does it with haute couture style. Read full review
85
TheWrapDave WhiteDec 6, 2019
In spite of an excessive, metaphor-bash of an ending — forgivable when everything else on screen is this frenziedly fun — In Fabric seduces like its bias-cut main character, then taunts you for your desire. Read full review
83
ConsequenceMax WinterDec 6, 2019
It’s probably best to view the film as a cypher, an opener of questions, with the red dress at its center a door to whatever might lie outside daily routine, however violent that passage might be. Read full review
83
IndieWireDavid EhrlichSep 10, 2018
At a time when movies are growing more plastic by the day, it’s always a thrill to experience something that’s so attuned to the tactile pleasures of the cinema; to see a movie that you can feel with your fingers even when it bypasses your heart or goes over your head. Read full review
83
The PlaylistRodrigo PerezSep 10, 2018
As usual, Strickland’s latest is delirious, deeply delicious in sumptuous form and sly humor. It’s an oddball film, even for the unusual filmmaker. Read full review
80
Little White LiesAnton BitelApr 5, 2022
In this oneiric oddity, consumerism is everything, ultimately devouring even the consumer – while the real horror is the exploitative means of production, carefully kept underground beyond the sight of bourgeois shoppers above. Read full review
80
Rolling StoneDavid FearDec 5, 2019
For all of its curated channeling of past midnight-movie programming, In Fabric doesn’t feel like it’s cut from the same cloth as anything else. It’s a singular trip into a singularly warped mind. Read full review
80
The Observer (UK)Mark KermodeJun 30, 2019
Strickland’s work seems to exist in that strange space between the social-realist tragicomedy of Mike Leigh and the exotic kaleidoscopic imaginings of Nicolas Roeg or Ken Russell. It’s a mesmerising place to be, at once familiar yet otherworldly. Try it on for size. Read full review
80
The GuardianPeter BradshawJun 29, 2019
In Fabric is indulgent, certainly, and I regretted the fact that the excellent Jean-Baptiste is not as centrally important to the film as I had assumed she would be. When she is gone, the voltage drops a bit. But it is just so singular, utterly unlike anything else around. Read full review
80
EmpireJohn NugentJun 24, 2019
Sensual, surreal and seriously funny, In Fabric won’t be the right fit for all — but slip it on and you might be surprised. Read full review
80
Screen DailyStephen Whitty Sep 10, 2018
This is a film with the logic of a dream, which is to say, no logic at all. But it also has the power of a nightmare. And, like some of them, it lingers. Read full review
78
Austin ChronicleRichard WhittakerDec 4, 2019
A bizarre and imaginative thriller with a sexual and sociological twist. Read full review
75
Original-CinThom ErnstDec 5, 2019
The horror in the film can be as equally as subtle as the humour—it is easy to miss both. Read full review
75
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Barry HertzDec 2, 2019
In Fabric is a beautiful, unpredictable nightmare for those drawn to giggle in the dark. Read full review
75
Slant MagazineChuck BowenNov 29, 2019
Strickland’s film is another fetish object that rues the perils of fetishism. Read full review
75
The A.V. ClubKatie RifeOct 4, 2018
Sheila’s humanity is a necessary counterbalance to Strickland’s intentionally stiff, formal style, which manifests in the film’s efficient pacing and crisp sound editing as well as its stylized performances and lavish production design. Read full review
75
The Film StageEthan VestbySep 10, 2018
It’s easy to admire Strickland’s formal chops while still finding the film–or rather his throwback “flourishes”–a little conceited. Read full review
70
SlateInkoo KangDec 2, 2019
As the dress floats above the couple while they sleep at night, fluttering in its indestructible refinement and invincible otherworldliness, one starts to wonder: Doesn’t the dress deserve to kill better people? Reg and Babs aren’t hateful, exactly, but their pathetic drabness make a case that the dress is getting the raw end of the deal. Read full review
65
Vanity FairK. Austin CollinsJan 3, 2020
If In Fabric is initially hindered by the literalism of Strickland's vision, it still manages to prove irritatingly suspenseful, at times even pleasurably shocking. Read full review
63
Boston GlobeTy BurrJan 2, 2020
In Fabric is good bizarre fun, but after a while that’s all it is. Read full review
60
The New YorkerAnthony LaneDec 9, 2019
To judge by the fashions, In Fabric is set in the nineteen-seventies. And, to judge by its visual and aural manners, it might as well have been made then, so reverent is Strickland’s thirst for the period, with its soft-core-porno tropes and its throbbing horror flicks. If anything, this antiquated air makes the film a little too arch and over-concocted for its own good. Read full review
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