This ain't Twilight. The Neon Demon goes for the jugular
Drive director Nicolas Winding Refn has done it again — polarizing audiences with his teen-centred "horror film about beauty".
Danish director Nicolas Winding Refn is a master of provoking his viewers. His latest film, The Neon Demon, manages to hit multiple nerves simultaneously — narcissism, rape, necrophilia, extreme violence, all splashed against a slick neon background.
At the Cannes Film Festival, some of the audience stood up and booed. Rolling Stone called the film "a special kind of awful". But like Drive and Only God Forgives before it, the film doesn't flinch.
This time, however, Winding Refn has enlisted teenage girls as agents of horror. Elle Fanning plays aspiring 16-year-old model Jesse — a girl as dangerous as she is beautiful.
Today Winding Refn joins Shad to discuss his high fashion horror, its focus on the feminine, and what he makes of the polarized reaction.
*The full audio will be added to this post following the broadcast