Last Night in Soho            4 stars

In Edgar Wright’s latest thriller drama horror Last Night in Soho, we first meet Ellie (Thomasin McKenzie of Jojo Rabbit and Leave No Trace) in an old house where her bedroom is decorated in old movie posters of Breakfast at Tiffany’s and Sweet Charity and other relics of the sixties. She dances to sixties pop tunes played on a turntable in an elaborate dress made of newspapers. But Ellie really lives in the present in rural Cornwall, England and is fascinated by everything about the sixties and dreams of becoming an accomplished fashion designer. Then Ellie gets her big chance when she is accepted to a famous fashion school in London.  The young girl doesn’t exactly fit in with her streetwise classmates and soon moves off campus, renting a room above a bar where landlady, Miss Collins (the exquisite Diana Rigg in her final performance before passing away last year) says she needs to pay two months rent upfront and no male guests are allowed after 8:00. It is then that things take a mysterious turn when Ellie goes to sleep and the room becomes a sort of teleportal device sending Ellie to a hopping neon light covered 1965 London with all the flashy fashions and pop songs of the sixties. The mood of the movie shifts as the themes become darker and more sinister. Ellie becomes connected to a girl called Sandie (Anya Taylor-Joy of The Witch and Emma) who may or may not actually exist. Unlike Ellie, Sandie faces the world with total confidence and owns the room she enters. She perfectly nails a rendition of Petula Clark’s 1965 hit Downtown. The movie embodies the look and feel of the decadent time period of the sixties and has some fine performances including Matt Smith’s Jack, a sort of sixties pimp who operates the acts at a London gentlemen’s club.  Eventually, though the movie devolves into full blown horror thriller mayhem when it gets to an over the top ending. I admit that I did not see the ending coming, so I won’t say more about it. If you are in the mood for a good thriller horror film, Last Night in Soho hits the spot.