Sophie Thatcher and Charles Melton shine in Refn’s hypnotic exploration of passion, fatherhood, identity.
![‘Her Private Hell’ Review: Nicolas Winding Refn Returns with a Gory, Beautifully Perverse, Genre-Bending Thriller [Fantasia]](https://www.dreadcentral.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/Her-Private-Hell-200491-H-2026.jpg)
“This movie is going to be hell,” says Elle, and she’s right—but not for the reasons she thinks. The mist outside her hotel (located in what could only be described as Evil Roku City, purple lighting and all) has summoned the Leather Man, a sadomasochistic killer who delights in ripping women to pieces as he searches for his missing daughter. And now that Johnny’s gone, the girls are in danger.
While Elle and company fight amongst each other (and eventually for survival) in Johnny’s gilded penthouse, Refn introduces us to another kind of hell in a parallel story set in a simulacrum of post-war Japan. There, we meet Private K (Charles Melton), an American soldier whose daughter was kidnapped by the Leather Man. Their quests eventually collide in a dream—Elle, wrapped in Johnny’s leather jacket, calls out for “daddy” while Private K takes down gangsters in a series of beautifully choreographed, ultra-violent fight scenes (Refn really has a thing for eye-gouging).
Though I loved watching Thatcher deliver Refn’s dialogue with a strange, sort of stilted sleepiness before finally exploding in the film’s crescendo (“Bring a knife to a fucking axe fight, you fucking bitch?!”), Melton’s performance is by far the strongest. Following his breakout role in Todd Haynes’s May December, Melton continues to prove that he’s one of the most exciting actors to watch. In the hands of anyone else, Private K could have been a one-note character, just another vengeful father willing to do anything to save his daughter, but Melton (who recently became a father himself) elevates the role in unexpected ways. This might have something to do with his experience on Riverdale, the campy CW show Refn’s youngest daughter introduced the director to, which inspired him to cast Melton for the role.
But that’s not Refn’s only unexpected source of inspiration for the film. He pulls from giallo films (Mario Bava’s Blood and Black Lace comes to mind), Kenneth Anger’s erotic short Scorpio Rising, Barbarella, Blade Runner, and Seijun Suzuki’s technicolor yakuza thrillers. Meanwhile, Magnus Nordenhof Jønck captures Jane Marshall Whittaker’s fetishy, space-age costumes (think: squeaky red leather trenches and diamond-encrusted gloves, dog collars and Paco Rabanne-inspired mini dresses) and production designer Gitte Malling’s maximalist sets with his evocative, super-saturated cinematography. The result is a film that doesn’t adhere to any one style or genre, which will be a treat for some but a conundrum for others.
Of course, Refn doesn’t care whether or not people “like” or “get” it. Her Private Hell, much like his equally polarizing 2013 neo-noir Only God Forgives, is more concerned with taking audiences on an emotional journey than delivering a conventional narrative (if there’s any film you should revisit before watching Her Private Hell, skip The Neon Demon and watch that one instead).
Now, I’m typically impervious to films that promise to be an “experience,” not because I’m totally heartless or anti-art (far from that), but because it’s easy for me to create distance between myself and the screen. And yet, by the film’s climax, I found myself with a knot in my throat. Her Private Hell is an exploration of fathers—the monstrous, the unavailable, the idealized; the father as a symbol, the father as a rival—but it’s also about daughters struggling to break the cycles their fathers set in motion. Elle, as we discover, is capable of being just as predatory and as sleazy as Johnny—she straddles Dominique and fondles her breasts as she’s sleeping before stuffing her semen-covered underwear in her mouth—but she immediately regrets her actions, breaking down in a hysterical fit when she realizes they will never be friends again.
Viewers who don’t mind Refn’s experimentation or the Oedipus complex of it all might instead take issue with the film’s pacing or dismiss this as an extra bizarro perfume ad, but I believe that Her Private Hell will eventually attract a cult following like Bronson or Drive. Refn has made one of the few genuinely perverse films of the decade, and as our culture inevitably swings in a new direction, I wouldn’t be surprised if audiences find themselves returning to this in a few years.
Even in the case that it doesn’t find its audience, I appreciate the fact that Refn understands that being a woman in this world is like living in hell, full of demons ready to tear you apart, whether they’re in the entertainment industry or at home. I’m glad God granted him a second chance at life to give us this gory, gorgeous, perverted little gem.
