My first cult experience was the Cult of Jon. It happened at Dragon Con, somewhere between the endless escalator rides and the late-night panels, where everyone pretends they’re not running on three hours of sleep and sheer nerd adrenaline. I was standing in line for something (probably overpriced pizza or a photo-op with someone from Firefly) when I heard it — this rising chant echoing down the hall: JON! JON! JON! At first, I assumed Jon was some obscure fandom character I hadn’t caught up on. Turns out, Jon was just a cardboard cutout used by FedEx. Some random guy who posed for a publicity show who had now been basically turned into a living legend. He gained googly eyes. He had offerings at the alter created around his cardboard feet. Con goers acted like being Jon-adjacent was the peak of the con experience.
And I’ll be honest — I’ve thought about that moment a lot, since. Because as weird as it sounds, I kinda want a cult of my own. Not in the Charles Manson sense. More in the “ride or die hype squad who screams my name when I walk into a Waffle House” sense.
I want to be someone’s Jon. I want to be immortalized on a T-shirt that someone wears unironically. I want someone to start an inside joke about me that takes on a life of its own, until one day, I show up to a convention and there’s a panel called “The Gospel of Jason: A Retrospective.” But alas, here I am — just me, sitting in a dark living room with a bag of popcorn, quietly wondering what my name would even chant well with.
This week’s movie scratches that cult-shaped itch in the back of my brain. Opus is a psychological thriller from writer-director Mark Anthony Green, marking his feature debut. The story centers on Ariel Ecton (played by Ayo Edebiri), a journalist invited to an exclusive listening party for Alfred Moretti (John Malkovich), a long-forgotten ‘90s pop icon who’s suddenly reemerged from obscurity.
Ariel arrives at Moretti’s secluded compound alongside a small, curated group of guests: her grizzled boss Stan (Murray Bartlett), fame-hungry influencer Emily (Stephanie Suganami), talk show diva Clara (Juliette Lewis), photographer Bianca (Melissa Chambers) and radio host Bill (Mark Sivertsen). The event is hosted by a collective known as “The Levelists,” a community of loyal followers who treat Moretti like a messiah and his unreleased album like scripture. At first, it all seems like eccentric celebrity weirdness. But as time passes, Ariel and the others begin to realize the Levelists aren’t just fans… they’re true believers.
And not everyone’s making it out of this playback party alive.
Opus is uniquely unsettling because it blends two concepts that have absolutely no business being in the same sentence: a music release party and a life-threatening club. I mean, who looks at a velvet-rope industry event — usually full of cocktails, networking and awkward small talk — and thinks, “You know what this needs? A death cult.” But that’s exactly what makes the film so jarring, in the best way.
It takes the glossy, PR-controlled world of celebrity mystique and slowly peels it back to reveal something fanatical, dangerous and hypnotically bizarre. The sheer absurdity of the premise shouldn’t work — and yet, it absolutely does, luring you in with the promise of new music and leaving you trapped in a nightmare scored by delusions of grandeur.
John Malkovich is just about the last person I’d picture as a ‘90s pop star. When I think of that era, I imagine frosted tips, mesh crop tops and choreographed dance routines — not the intense, cerebral energy of Malkovich, a man who often feels like he’s halfway through solving a metaphysical riddle even when ordering coffee. He doesn’t exactly scream TRL material. And yet, somehow, Opus makes it work.
Malkovich leans into the character’s washed-up mystique with a kind of haunted grandeur, playing Alfred Moretti less like a former heartthrob and more like a once-revered prophet who’s grown increasingly disconnected from reality. He may not fit the boy-band mold (except for one unexpectedly hilarious scene where he debuts his new song), but in this twisted world where charisma leads into control, his offbeat presence feels eerily correct.
Unfortunately, these are the only real positives I can muster for Opus. While its premise is undeniably intriguing and Malkovich brings a certain off-kilter gravitas to the role, the rest of the film struggles to hold together. The script occasionally tries to lighten the mood with bits of humor — mostly awkward quips or dry one-liners — but they rarely land. In a film built on paranoia and creeping dread, the tonal shifts feel jarring instead of refreshing, like someone trying to tell knock-knock jokes in the middle of a funeral.
Worse still, the cult itself — the Levelists — remains frustratingly vague. We’re given glimpses of their rituals, their blind devotion to Moretti, and their obsession with his long-delayed album, but the “why” behind it all is barely touched. What do they believe? What’s the goal? What’s actually at stake? The movie hints at deeper meaning but never follows through, leaving you with more questions than intrigue. And as for the big twist in the final act? It arrives with all the impact of a soft piano chord in a horror score — technically there but lacking weight. Rather than recontextualize the story or deliver a gut punch, the ending just sort of… happens, then fades out, leaving you more confused than satisfied.
I give Opus two out of five stars. In the end, Opus feels like a concept album that should’ve stayed in the demo stage. There’s ambition here — no doubt — and a few genuinely eerie moments that show what could have been. But ambition without clarity only gets you so far. The film stumbles in its tone, fumbles its themes and ultimately fails to stick the landing.
For a studio like A24, known for championing bold, offbeat and emotionally resonant storytelling, Opus stands out — but not in the way they’d probably like. It’s a rare misstep from a company that usually delivers something special, even when the material is strange.
It may have scratched my itch for a cult-themed thriller, but by the time the final credits faded out, I was ready to abandon my Dragon Con-fueled fantasies of starting my own fanatical following and leave the cult life to Jon — the true prophet of the FedEx standee.