TIFF Review: Anna Biller’s The Face of Horror Honors the Cinematic Past with a Fresh Perspective

There’s a longstanding rumor about former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich: in 1980, he allegedly served his ex-wife with divorce papers while she was on her hospital bed so he could immediately leave her for his mistress. Then, in 1999, he left that same woman after she was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis to be with yet another extramarital partner. This may be an odd way to open a review of The Face of Horror—the long-awaited return of The Love Witch director Anna Biller to the big screen—but that connection was hard to ignore while watching this film.

Why the comparison? Adapting the classic Japanese ghost story Yotsuya Kaidan to the 14th century, The Face of Horror is a story about history’s eternal bastard: the ungrateful, duplicitous husband. The spouse in question is the English knight Edward (Jonah Hauer-King), who takes the young, beautiful Eleanor (Her Private Hell’s Kristine Froseth) as his wife after murdering her landowner father to claim his estate. Yet, in a dynamic reminiscent of Theodore Dreiser’s An American Tragedy, a ticket to true high society catches his eye in the form of the elegant Countess Isabel (Bella Heathcote). As an ensuing plague leaves Eleanor prone to severe coughing fits, Edward grows even more detached, disparaging both her intelligence and appearance through cruel words and cold absence. Tragedy strikes as Edward’s plot to ascend takes hold and, delightfully, the supernatural enters the picture.

As with 2016’s Love Witch, writer-director-editor-costumer Anna Biller’s deep cinephilia serves as the guiding force. Once again, her ability to recreate not just the aesthetic and performance styles but also deliberate pacing of 1950s and ’60s genre cinema is unparalleled. It makes a fine companion piece to Caroline Golum’s micro-budget medieval drama Revelations of Divine Love, even if Biller’s film—running nearly an hour longer—demands a bit more patience. Some viewers might feel restless watching Biller so earnestly embrace the tropes of older subgenres, whether it’s Hollywood’s mid-century obsession with medieval stage adaptations or the stiff British respectability of Hammer horror. Yet The Face of Horror commits fully to its bit, even when dialing up the gruesomeness.

Ultimately, Biller’s project centers on modernizing these old cinematic formats, weaving in dialogue that makes explicit her feminist perspective. Mashing these elements together might suggest an overly calculated postmodern exercise, yet its story lands with surprising emotional weight amid all the stylistic artifice. The Face of Horror is, in earnest, quite a sad reflection on the eternal push-pull between men and women. Biller asserts that there seems a permanent insecurity at each end of the spectrum—differing power dynamics that nonetheless always lead to someone looking for validation via their partner. Yet, as the film shows, it’s often the woman who suffers in the end. The tragedy of heterosexuality, if you will.

The Face of Horror premiered at TIFF 2026.