Coming from my neck of the woods, Edgar Wright is the epitome of country boy making it good in the big city, garnering himself quite a following with cult comedy classic like Spaced and Shaun of the Dead alongside dramatic and cinematic masterpieces (yes, I stand by the word) such as Baby Driver. For his latest movie, Wright dips his toe in the psychological thriller pool with his sleek and stylish, female led, Last Night In Soho. Forget Dune or No Time To Die, THIS is my most eagerly anticipated film of the year.

We first meet Eloise (Thomasin McKenzie) in a makeshift yet beautiful ballgown fashioned out of newspapers as she is dancing around her rural country home to the sounds of Peter and Gordon’s “A World Without Love”. Raised by her grandmother after her mum’s suicide when she was a young girl, Eloise has a deep and emotional connection to London in the 60’s so when she is accepted into London’s prestigious College of Fashion, the quiet country mouse is ready to embrace the sights and sounds of the big city.

Struggling a little with the realities of dorm life, endless parties and her rather bitchy roommate, Jocasta, Eloise decides to get a place on her own and rents out a bedsit apartment in Soho from the elderly Miss Collins. But Eloise has a special gift that makes her more attune to the environment around her, and on the first night in her new digs she is transported to the Swinging Sixties where she forms a bond with Sandie (Anya Taylor-Joy), a bright and confident aspiring singer determined to make her mark on the London club scene.

Through clever editing and the ingenious use of mirrors and reflections, we see Eloise’s both observing and embodying Sandie as she meets the charming and charismatic music manager Jack (Matt Smith). When she wakes Eloise is both inspired and infatuated by her experience, channeling sixties fashion in her work, shopping for vintage clothes and changing her hair to be more like the confident Sandie.

But as she uncovers more of Sandie’s story, the shiny veneer of London comes away revealing the dark griminess and seedy underbelly that sits just beneath the surface and the memories of the past start to bleed into the present in a dazzling and stylish descent into madness, exposing something darker and far more sinister at play.

To say that Anya Taylor-Joy has had a phenomenal couple of years is something of an understatement, after a fairly quiet introduction in M. Night Shyamalan’s Split she has become one of cinema’s hottest commodities joining the cast of Peaky Blinders, taking the titular role in Autumn de Wilde’s Emma. and delivering an award-winning performance in the Netflix smash hit, The Queen’s Gambit. This wide-eyed star power makes her perfect for the wannabe starlet Sandie and she steals the show whenever she is on screen.

Whilst Anya Taylor-Joy is the film’s shining light, Thomasin McKenzie is its driving force, the bridge between the times and it is imperative that we connect with her character else the whole film will fall apart. Her quiet earnestness, shy demeanour and innocence gives us a character that we can believe and root for and that plays well against the confidence and vividness of Taylor-Joy’s Sandie.

Alongside the two incredible female leads we’ve got the likes of Terence Stamp, Matt Smith, who gives a suitably charming yet seedy performance as the music manager/pimp, the glorious Diana Rigg in her final ever film performance and even a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it appearance from Taylor-Joy’s Peaky Blinder’s co-star (and one of my personal favourites) Sam Clafin. A little less successful is Michael Ajao’s John, a friendly presence in Eloise’s present day reality but relegated to a shoe-horned love interest.

Last Night In Soho is a tale of two halves, the first feels like a stylish gothic romance elegantly traversing the timelines seducing us with the glitz and the glamour of the big city but the second half takes a turn into horror. But this is horror from the mind of Edgar Wright and his co-writer Krysty Wilson-Cairns (who wrote the Oscar-nominated screenplay for 1917) and the faceless ghouls that haunt Eloise’s waking hours are a visual representation of the underlying themes of toxic masculinity, grief and the manipulation of women that permeate the fabric of the film.

The sharp, fast paced editing working in perfect harmony with powerfully evocative musical choices is indicative of Wright’s directorial style but, other than that, Last Night In Soho is a pleasantly dark and triumphant step into something new and with a remake of the 1987 Running Man announced and his name attached to other projects including an adaptation of the best-selling novel ‘The Chain’ and a follow up to his brilliant Baby Driver, the World is Edgar Wright’s proverbial oyster.