AFFECTION (2026) Review

Review

Everyone loves a good amnesia movie. Memento; Oldboy; the whole Bourne trilogy. In many ways, someone who has no clue who they are or what they’re supposed to be doing makes for the perfect protagonist. Knowing just as little as they do, we feel a sort of camaraderie with them from their very first scene.

This is doubly true of a horror film, where the implications of memory loss are far more insidious. Nothing puts you in a more vulnerable position than being surrounded by strange faces, unable to distinguish between truths and traps.

What makes BT Meza’s directorial debut, Affection, immediately stand out from other amnesia flicks is that our protagonist, Ellie, knows who she is – or rather, she thinks she does. 

So, when the man claiming to be her husband tells her all her memories are false – the symptom of a neurological condition – Ellie’s more than a little perturbed at the thought of having to embrace a completely alien life with a family she doesn’t remember. 

Affection’s opening scene is very effective, with lead actor Jessica Rothe (of Happy Death Day fame) delivering one of the most convincing movie seizures I’ve seen in a long time. 

The cinematography is competent and remains so for the rest of the film, with frequent use of wide shots evoking – ironically – a deep sense of claustrophobia throughout.

The music gets a little invasive for my liking, though this isn’t a consistent problem. There are a couple of scenes early on where it feels as if scary music is used just because the filmmakers thought it ought to be (it’s a horror movie, after all!) rather than because the scene needed it. Silence would’ve been more effective here.

In line with the music, there’s a decent helping of melodrama straight out of the gate, where the actors do a little too much to portray a difficult experience, which should’ve been stressful enough without shouting, crying and pleas for understanding. 

One character in particular behaves in such a way that what the plot has in store for them (no spoilers) seems immediately obvious. If the actor had eased off the gas a little bit in their portrayal of certain characteristics, things would have been more mysterious and the story less predictable. 

That’s not to say the story doesn’t take some unexpected turns – it does, and they’re brilliant, but we’ll get to that later.

Some great tension is built in the first act, as Ellie is shaken out of her new status quo. During one part in particular, I felt like I’d mentally manifested a scene with almost no music. Instead, largely static shots of woodland and close-ups on Rothe are allowed to linger without unnecessary audio.

The back-and-forth between these two shots – each one possibly hiding an imminent jump scare – is simple but effective, and even got my palms sweating a bit.

However, the tension doesn’t always result in a high-quality scare, and the shot selection could’ve used a bit more finesse here and there.

It often seems as though the director hasn’t shot a broad enough breadth of footage to allow for comfortable transitions between shots. Characters – especially Ellie’s daughter – are cut to suddenly without clear visual or audio telegraphing from the previous shot.

On two occasions this was so spontaneous it made me laugh out loud, which I doubt is what the creatives were going for.

Perhaps some of the blunt cuts were a stylistic choice, to be deliberately jarring. In the case of a few jump scares, this was certainly the intention, but if so, they’re cheap jump scares – the equivalent of switching your toddler’s Jack-in-the-box for an airhorn.

There’s a point, almost bang on halfway through the film, where the story jumps into a different gear, just as I was beginning to get a bit bored. 

Meza has a few unexpected surprises in store for those willing to hold on through 45 minutes of brilliantly acted seizures and some somewhat eye-rolling husband-and-wife dialogue.

It’s rare that a story revelation shifts my perspective on a film quite as drastically as this one did. I’d hate to spoil it for anyone, so I’ll just say that the high concept gets even higher, and this certainly isn’t a simple horror-thriller, if that’s what you were expecting. 

I feel the shake-up comes a bit too early, however. There aren’t quite enough bread crumbs put down for Ellie to follow before the revelation hits, and so we don’t really have enough time to see her piece things together before shit hits the fan.

There’s an investigative element that’s missing from the first half of the film, due to Ellie’s willingness to accept her new status quo without any real scrutiny. She’s a little too trusting too soon, and that might explain why the first 45 minutes – excluding one or two scenes – felt a little sedate to me.

The big reveal feels less like the final piece of a cryptic puzzle – painstakingly uncovered by a prying and peeping protagonist – and more like the beginning of the film the director really wanted to make, if only they hadn’t had to do all that pesky set-up first.

Unfortunately, this revelation also expects the audience to take at face value a very specific concept that is fairly poorly explained. The exposition for this is delivered primarily through found footage and written notes, and within a short enough timeframe that anyone not on top form or heavily caffeinated could easily miss parts of it. 

What’s more is that a key part of the concept they introduce makes no sense even within the reality the movie has established. This could’ve used just one extra line of dialogue to make it believable enough for me to accept after a mild suspension of disbelief.

As it stands, this sizeable chunk of missing information is never filled in, and I was left metaphorically scratching my chin for what remained of the runtime, when instead I should’ve been getting lost in the atmosphere and marvelling at the excellent body horror (I still did a little marvelling, but not as much as I could have).

On that note, there are some fantastic effects here, and, if I’m not mistaken, all of them are practical. The initial concept Affection wafts under our nose is enticing enough, but the direction the filmmakers take it – and the wonderfully tactile imagery they use to justify that direction – is a genuine delight for anyone who loves the type of high-concept weirdness you might expect from an early Cronenberg project.

I’m afraid the ending is a bit directionless, though. The film trails off on several different threads, but the one I had my eye on seemed to vanish completely, leaving me to wonder if I was still watching the plot unfold, or just a strung-out domino effect stemming from the last thread that mattered. 

Luckily, the editor eventually rediscovers that thread, getting us back on track for a conclusion that is equal parts sad and confusing.

Verdict

To make an obvious pun, first-time director BT Meza clearly has a lot of affection for the ideas he explores (with gruesome abandon) in this unsettling and often surprising B-horror tale. If, on his next attempt, he can deliver a tighter plot, manage tone more effectively and find a better way to dole out exposition, we’ll be in for a treat.

⭐⭐⭐