Dark Waters: unsung Todd Haynes legal drama is a masterclass in dread

The May December director's 2019 film is uncharacteristically realist - but it's also an existential horror about the toxicity of the modern worldIf you were to wander accidentally into the opening scenes of Dark Waters, you might dismiss it as a generic horror. A gaggle of teenagers jump the fence to swim in an inky lake, spied by some underwater predator. A television monitor displays grainy VHS footage of a tumour spilling out of a cow's skull. A beleaguered Mark Ruffalo sits alone in a dark office, entombed in paper, trying to find the evidence to nail the perpetrator.Without context, there's nothing remarkable about these scenes. But stay to the end, and you'll learn that what makes Todd Haynes' 2019 film so disturbing is not only that it's all true, but that each of us is far more intimate with its antagonist than we'd imagine. Continue reading...