Crew
Director/Screenplay – Neil Marshall, Story – Charlotte Kirk & Neil Marshall, Producer – Kristyna Sellnerova, Photography – Ali Asad, Music – Paul Lawler, Visual Effects Supervisor – Nikola Panic, Special Effects Supervisor – Mark Tabone, Makeup Effects/Prosthetics – Stefania Piovesan, Production Design – Di Sole. Production Company – Kristyna Sellnerova Productions/Cork Films/DO Productions Malta/Media Finance Capital/Primal Empire Studios.
Cast
Anna-Maria Sieklucka (Evie Kawalska), Charlotte Kirk (Diana Shaw), Zach McGowan (Reese), Giulia Gorietti (Detective Claudia Cavara), Harvey Dean (Inspector Dennis Crawford), Mikhail Basmadjian (Chief Mario Cavara), Aidan Aquilina (Christian Tessari), Emily Corcoran (Melania), Anthony Edridge (Mason Oswald), Cinzia Monreale (Madam Karmelina), Matteo Caruana Bond (Gianni Salvo), Matthew Camilerri (Francis Gristi)
Plot
On the island of Malta, a masked and body-suited woman is killing men, viciously slicing them up with knives. Evie Kawalska arrives and takes over her wealthy stepfather’s villa. She befriends British girl Diana Shaw who is living next door with her boyfriend Reese and the two become instant friends. Diana starts to flirt with and come onto the lesbian Evie who has just broken up with her girlfriend. What Evie does not know is that Evie and Reese are attempting to get close to Evie so they can steal the money her stepfather has in the safe.
In the early 2000s, British director Neil Marshall held considerable promise. Marshall appeared with the modest werewolf film Dog Soldiers (2002) and then impressed in a big way with the underground horror The Descent (2005). This was followed by the quite good likes of the post-holocaust film Doomsday (2008) and the non-genre historical film Centurion (2010).
I would have had no problem listing Neil Marshall as one of the top genre directors throughout the 2000s. Alas the latter half of the 2010s and definitely the 2020s seem to have been the point where that promise came unstuck. Feature film work seemed to dry up after Centurion. Marshall was paying the bills directing quite a bit of episodic tv on everything from Game of Thrones (2011-9), Hannibal (2013-5), Constantine (2014-5), Westworld (2016-22) to Lost in Space (2018-21), which were certainly top-drawer prestige shows. However, his return to feature films has been dismal, first with the disastrous reboot of Hellboy (2019) and has gone downhill from there. And the source of all that can be placed at the door of one person – Charlotte Kirk, a controversy laden figure, to whom Marshall is engaged. The two have now collaborated on the witch persecution film The Reckoning (2020), the monster movie The Lair (2022), the non-genre action film Duchess (2024) and do so again here on Compulsion.
I recently watched Bone Lake (2025), which had been called a throwback to the 1990s erotic thriller of Basic Instinct (1992) and the assorted copies it inspired. Bone Lake was pitiful and had less steam in it than a puff of breath on a cold windowpane. On the other hand, Compulsion delivers exactly what it promises and is a full-blooded throwback to the 1990s erotic thriller that does not hold back when it comes to the steamy scenes.
I have not had a high opinion of Charlotte Kirk’s acting ability prior to this. She has been terrible in all the Neil Marshall films she has appeared in. Here I had cause to revise my opinion. Indeed, Kirk seems to be playing into the public perception of her. She is all seductive sizzle and bitchy sexpot. She throws herself into the part – everything she does oozes with seductivity – and Marshall sets up a series of sizzling scenes. At which one has to say, she delivers everything you expect her to do.
While I hesitate to call Compulsion more than a strictly average film, Neil Marshall seems to be having more fun in the director’s chair in anything else he has done this side of the 2020s. He is well attuned to the erotic scenes. He enjoys the displays of conspicuous consumption (albeit on a budget) – expensive fast cars, motorcycles, villas, location shooting in Malta, chic clothing that bares almost everything. There is a highly entertaining knife fight scene with the two girls stabbing at Zach McGowan that just keeps on going and going and then going even more when you think the scene has ended. The only point that Compulsion weakens is the end revelation of the killer’s identity who is exactly who you predicted it would be from the outset without the script making any effort to create red herrings.
Compulsion is not related to and should not be confused with Compulsion (1959), Richard Fleischer’s acclaimed film loosely based on Leopold and Loeb murder case.
Trailer here