★★★★ out of ★★★★★
Intensity 🩸🩸🩸🩸 out of 🩸🩸🩸🩸🩸
Directed by Jordan Downey
Jordan Downey sends viewers and forensic anthropologist Meg on a mysterious and shocking ride in the highly recommended The Cycle.
Official synopsis
When the body of a man missing for thirty-six years is discovered at the scene of a horrific crime, it’s up to his estranged daughter to unravel his dark past.
Review
I’m going to keep this review on the short and sweet side, as director Jordan Downey’s The Cycle deserves to be seen going in as cold as possible. Plotwise, suffice it to say that the film goes to quite unexpected places as viewers follow highly skilled forensic anthropologist Meg (Deborah Ann Woll) as she tries to unravel the mystery of what happened to three dead people — one of whom is the estranged father who abandoned Meg and her mother more than three decades earlier.
That’s all revealed early on — and in the official synopsis above — and that’s all you need to know until you see what Downey, who cowrote the screenplay with Kevin Stewart, and his cast and crew have in store for viewers. Local father-and-son police duo of Marks (Jeffrey Donovan) and Ian (Will Hochman) assist Meg in her investigation, while Meg’s mother Joni (Gretchen Corbett) wants absolutely nothing to do with it.
The sizable cast is superb, with Woll leading the way in a top-notch performance. The pacing is terrific, as Downey initially builds suspense through mystery and then ramps things up in the fright-fare department. And the practical effects and makeup effects are highly impressive, ranging from the cool to the gruesome.
Certainly you can find other spoiler-filled reviews for The Cycle, but I implore you to resist that temptation. If you need further tantalizing, though, I can say that what begins as a forensic procedural will evolve into a whole other type of horror film, one that serves up plenty of mangling and mayhem.
The Cycle screened as part of Brooklyn Horror Film Festival, which ran October 15–22, 2026. The film also debuted on Shudder on October 23, 2026.
Review by Joseph Perry
Photo credit: All images from Jordan Downey’s The Cycle. Courtesy of Shudder. A Shudder Release.
