Nocebo | Telescope Film
Nocebo

Nocebo

Critic Rating

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  • Ireland,
  • United Kingdom,
  • Philippines,
  • United States
  • 2022
  • · 96m

Director Lorcan Finnegan
Cast Eva Green, Mark Strong, Chai Fonacier, Billie Gadsdon, Cathy Belton
Genre Horror, Thriller

A fashion designer hires a nanny from the Philippines to help while she is suffering from what appears to be a tick-related illness. The nanny uses traditional Filipino folk healing techniques to help her, but in the process of doing so, she uncovers a horrifying truth about why her employer is actually sick.

Stream Nocebo

What are critics saying?

83

The Film Stage by Jared Mobarak

Green and Fonacier are both fantastic within this evolving dynamic, their inevitable end a mutually brutal sacrifice meant to close a broken loop rather than continue some damaging cycle. Their characters are so complex that their best moments are those subtle shimmers revealing true natures beneath old façades.

75

The Playlist

It’s rare for a film to so boldly depict shamanic experience as Nocebo does here, where ritual and sacrifice open up relations with enigmatic and powerful forces in unseen realms.

75

The Playlist by Ned Booth

It’s rare for a film to so boldly depict shamanic experience as Nocebo does here, where ritual and sacrifice open up relations with enigmatic and powerful forces in unseen realms.

70

Screen Daily by Nikki Baughan

Nocebo combines traditional Filipino folklore with modern concerns about cultural exploitation, and while it is prone to moments of melodramatic excess is still another intriguing work from one of Ireland’s most interesting talents.

58

The A.V. Club by Luke Y. Thompson

The “mystery” elements simply aren’t mysterious. Yet without them, the sparse moments of gore and icky bugs aren’t quite enough to pad things out.

50

RogerEbert.com by Simon Abrams

With Nocebo, Finnegan and his collaborators have put their finger on something dark and disturbing. Too bad it’s never as upsetting as it is suggestive.

50

The New York Times by Jason Zinoman

This movie has plenty going for it: excellent actors (Fonacier has a knack for coiled tension), stylish camerawork by the director Lorcan Finnegan and a point to make about economic exploitation. What’s missing is any sense of surprise.