In the Shadow of the Moon (2019)

Directed by Jim Mickle. Starring Boyd Holbrook, Michael C. Hall, Bokeem Woodbine, Cleopatra Coleman, Rudi Dharmalingam, Sarah Dugdale, Philippa Domville.

Obsessive police officer Holbrook pursues an ageless serial killer across decades of time, one whose method of murder is most unusual and who only emerges to strike every nine years. If physicist Dharmalingam is to be believed, the killer may very well be a time traveler, a theory Holbrook initially dismisses…but what other explanation could there be? A potentially intriguing twist on/intersection of both serial killer mystery/thrillers and time travel sci-fi pictures, and there is some suspense and brooding atmosphere in the first act promising a quality potboiler. But there are just too many logic lapses and plot holes to bear—the kind unrelated to the necessary time travel paradoxes—and one of the more contrived “surprises” can be spotted from a mile away, as defeating in prediction as it is in arrival. The makeup used to age Holbrook and a couple others over the course of thirty years or so is neither especially original nor convincing (Holbrook growing an unkempt “crazy man” beard to demonstrate his growing madness with the unsolvable case looks like, in both theory and practice, the sort of rush job you’d see done for a live comedy skit). Premiered at Fantastic Fest a few days before being released on Netflix.

43/100