Peter Strickland's In Fabric (2018)

Peter Strickland's In Fabric resembles a sex-obsessed, 1970s suburban London comedy mixed with the comic horror of Quentin Dupieux and bathed in a Lynchian atmosphere.

Apart from the incendiary ending it's in two parts: the first with bank clerk Sheila Woolchapel (Marianne Jean-Baptiste) looking for love after her split from her husband, constantly plagued by her son Vince (Jaygann Ayeh) and his girlfriend Gwen (Gwendoline Christie); and the second with Reg Sparks (Leo Bill as a washing machine mechanic) and his new wife Babs (Hayley Squires).

But the real star of the movie – and appearing in both parts – is an ('arterial red') killer dress, originally bought by Sheila from Dentley & Soper's from post-Christmas sales for a date. At this shop, the staff speak in a weird, pretentious variety of English, and the changing rooms are called 'The Transformation Sphere'. The dress gives Sheila a rash, causes her washing machine to go berserk and a dog to savagely attack her, and generally freaks her out. In the second half, following Sheila's death in a car crash, the dress is bought in a charity shop for Reg's stag night, gives him a rash and causes his washing machine to go crazy.

It's not too difficult to see this film as an indictment of modern consumerism, high-powered selling and heartless capitalism. Perhaps the strongest criticism of the over-riding power of the market is when Reg gets the sack for mending his own washing machine: he bought his own spare parts, but we mustn't forget that the company trained him. And they trained him so well that he's really fluent in washing-machine-speak, even lulling his gay bank managers into almost orgasmic bliss with it: I was so suspicious of the language used that I even checked out 'wigwag terminals', and yes – it's a bona fide term!

As for the dress, of course it survives the fire and remains wholly intact, even though it was the cause of it. The tannoy annoucement is: 'A dramatic affliction has compromised our Trusted Department Store. Get out graciously.' As Quentin Dupieux is only too aware, inanimate objects can have supernatural forces.