THE STORY – It’s the summer of 1998 in New York City; Sayo, a soulful nightlife photographer and small-time drug dealer, is invited to a party upstate by his long-time friend and unrequited love, a movie star on the rise: Vince Marlowe. Together with their rowdy friend Ross, they drive to a remote, bucolic manor in hopes of some summer debauchery. But when they arrive, they discover that the promise of a party is actually three mysterious women – Billie, Wren and Cata – whose disturbing agenda draws the boys into a dark web of seduction and terror.
THE CAST – Jeff Wahlberg, Brodie Townsend, Michael Vlamis, Lily Cowles, Nuha Jes Izman, & Ching Valdes-Aran
THE TEAM – Corrin Evans (Director/Writer) & Lily Cowles (Writer)
THE RUNNING TIME – 102 Minutes
Corrin Evans’s feature debut “Corpus” opens on a scene that sets a discomforting tone: a photographer loading film into a camera, a model posing under the lens, the frame inching closer until you feel her discomfort, especially when the photographer calls in a second model, a naked man in an executioner-style mask. “It’s important in this industry to show you can be edgy,” the photographer says, and a tear slides down the model’s cheek. It’s the first sign that Evans knows exactly how long to hold a shot until it stops being erotic and becomes uncomfortable. That’s the needle “Corpus” threads for the next hour and a half.
Having its world premiere at the Fantasia International Film Festival, the story really picks up a year later, in 1998 New York City, welcomed by a grungy title sequence that establishes period texture and feels like a genuine artifact of ‘90s indie filmmaking. We meet Sayo (Jeff Wahlberg) buying cigarettes at a newsstand, where he spots his estranged friend and successful model Vince Marlowe (Brodie Townsend) on a magazine cover and can’t push it away fast enough. Sayo is a photographer at a club and a small-time drug dealer on the side. There’s a cool recurring visual trick where, as he takes photos of the nightlife, his shots appear to develop onscreen, the flash registering in a way that makes each scene appear like it’s moving in slow motion.
Sayo’s reaction to hearing Vince is coming to the club tells you everything you need to know: there’s history here, and it’s not settled. The two have charged, unresolved chemistry that reads instantly as former lovers. Their friend Ross (Michael Vlamis) later confirms this, warning Sayo not to let Vince back in because Vince only looks out for himself. Wahlberg plays Sayo as a lost boy burned too often who has built a hard shell. Townsend’s Vince is more inscrutable, magnetic in a way that can tip into dangerous without warning. When Vince invites Sayo to a party at a magazine photographer’s house, pitched as a networking opportunity and a chance to “rise” together, Sayo’s reluctance reads less like hesitation and more like self-protection.
Of course, Sayo eventually gives in, and he probably shouldn’t have, as the party turns into ritualistic madness. The setting is a mansion soaked in old, dead money. The mysterious hosts are three women whose agenda slowly and unnervingly reveals itself. One of them, Wren (Nuha Jes Izman), is the model from the opening scene, now covered in blood, carrying a beheaded chicken, and giving off an animalistic quality that makes the connection to that earlier, quieter version genuinely unsettling. Billie (Lily Cowles), Vince’s photographer, adds a sense that something nefarious is in motion. The mask from the opening scene resurfaces here, mounted like art on a shelf. Ross’s throwaway joke about not wanting his head on a platter feels like foreshadowing.
Instead of a party, we’re celebrating St. John’s Eve, the Midsummer feast that, in various folk traditions, blends with older pagan solstice rites involving fire, purification, and ritual. The film shifts from house party to ceremony during a dinner where the men can’t eat because the meat is served raw, the women take turns feeding each other, and Wren recites a Latin prayer to St. John as the camera spins around the table. It’s disorienting and genuinely strange, but you’re pulled into it.
Drinking, drugs, and skinny-dipping under the deepest blue of night eventually happen, but there’s something dark underneath as sexual tension grows dangerously. Billie and her lover, Cata (Ching Valdes-Aran), pull these men into their sensual orbit through song and hypnotic dance like sirens on the Aegean Sea. It’s easier to penetrate straight-man Ross, but not Sayo and Vince, who get lost in a stare, communicating their unresolved feelings more powerfully than any dialogue. Sayo’s dream sequence, in which he manifests his desire for Vince and literally tears off part of his face, is the film’s thesis: desire here isn’t separate from consumption; it’s a stage of it. “Corpus” is fascinated by the idea that wanting someone badly enough is indistinguishable from wanting to devour them. “I want all of you” as a literal, transformative, consuming act, not a figure of speech. It’s strange to dramatize, and the film mostly pulls it off, even when it can’t quite spell out the logic in words. The film loses some of its grip because of how convoluted it makes Vince’s feelings for Sayo. It’s a small price for a confident debut, but the film’s strange events prove more compelling than the relationship that’s supposed to be its emotional center.
It’s a ballsy feature debut for Evans, whose short films have shown a love of exploring dark and erotic themes, but most of her credits are as an intimacy coordinator (“All’s Fair,” “Yellowstone,” “MaXXXine,” “Dicks: The Musical“). That she’s behind the camera for a story like this feels significant, as she clearly has a different eye in framing sex, bodies, and desire than most directors. Charlie Cole’s cinematography elevates Evans’s work, creating a moody atmosphere captured under a dark orange glow.
“Corpus” is both hot as hell and very weird (complementary). While its dots don’t always connect, it impresses in how it depicts humanity’s dark urges and erotic fantasies, until desire stops being about wanting someone and starts being about becoming them. It’s unique in its storytelling, with narrative beats that are truly unpredictable and great use of horror mechanics, easily keeping you trapped in the eye of Evans’s camera.
