Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Nocebo’ on Hulu, One Mother of a Horror Film

Nocebo, noun: a negative symptom experienced by a person with such expectations. So says the dictionary, at least. Could the same be said for the experience of watching Nocebo, an eerie horror film of the same name now streaming on Hulu? Here’s what you should expect…

NOCEBO: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: Something’s up with mother and fashion designer Christine (Eva Green). After a dog (that maybe is in her head?) shakes off some kind of weird bugs in her vicinity, one attaches to Christine’s skin unbeknownst to her. Nothing’s ever quite right afterward, and like the answer to an unspoken prayer, the Filipina caretaker Diana (Chai Fonacier) arrives on her doorstep. Christine’s daughter Bobs (Billie Gadson) meets the new houseguest with some suspicion, and her husband Felix (Mark Strong) soon develops qualms of his own. Diana brings not only household support but a trove of practices from Filipino witchcraft that can help alleviate. Christine’s health improves, but the family’s trust begins to collapse amidst mistrust and some freak occurrences. With time, Christine herself comes to share the sense that something’s up with Diana … but by that point, the chicanery of her carer has progressed too far to turn back.

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: The film starts off with the premise of a Mary Poppins/Nanny McPhee but for horror, then … it goes fully in the range of Nikyatu Jusu’s Nanny, the Sundance prize-winner from last year that’s available on Amazon Prime Video.

Performance Worth Watching: Eva Green should be in more movies, pass it on. She’s great at playing Christine from her moodiest lows to her kookiest highs.

Memorable Dialogue: “Explaing is useless, Christine,” Diana proffers at a moment of peak confusion in their relationship. 

Sex and Skin: Severely burned skin, yes. But we’re talking carnage, not carnality, in this instance.

Our Take: Perhaps you were among the many people who settled in with director Lorcan Finnegan’s Vivarium in March 2020 when we were desperate for any new release films. The same issues plague his follow-up Nocebo — namely, it’s too heavy on vibes and atmosphere. Finnegan has great skill in letting tensions simmer so the audience knows there’s something insidious in the air, but that can only sustain for so long. (Plus, there are only so many split diopter shots one can stomach — we get it, you’ve seen a Brian de Palma movie.) Garret Shanley’s script has an interesting twist that moves standard genre fare into some decently provocative social commentary, but Finnegan’s execution of the ideas does not serve them well. While he avoids some of the worst pitfalls of the premise — namely, by not overly exoticizing Diana — resorting to the standard genre toolkit does not match whatever nuance the screenplay possesses.

Our Call: SKIP IT. What a waste of Eva Green in her scream queen bag. You can safely say “no” to Nocebo. It’s too caught up in tired visual tropes to live up to the promise of its ultimate premise.

Marshall Shaffer is a New York-based freelance film journalist. In addition to Decider, his work has also appeared on Slashfilm, Slant, The Playlist and many other outlets. Some day soon, everyone will realize how right he is about Spring Breakers.

Watch Nocebo on Hulu