THE CYCLE movie poster | ©2026 IFC/Shudder

Rating: Not Rated
Stars: Deborah Ann Woll. Jeffrey Donovan, Will Hochman, Jack Doolan, Carl W. Crudup, Jeb Berrier, Gretchen Corbett, Phillip Andre Botello, Danika Golombek, Don Keith Opper, David Myers Gregory
Writers: Jordan Downey & Kevin Stewart
Director: Jordan Downey
Distributor: IFC Films/Shudder
Release Date: October 23, 2026

THE CYCLE is what could be termed a supernatural forensic murder mystery. It tackles a mostly familiar horror genre from the point of view of pathologists, while adding a new wrinkle to the mythology.

We meet forensic anthropologist Dr. Megan Garland (Deborah Ann Woll) in a diner, where she’s going over photos of an open-mouthed skeleton. Dr. Garland – call her Meg – runs the Body Farm at the Crichton Institute of Science. She occasionally investigates cases and trains police in what to do when they find corpses in various stages of decomposition.

Across the bridge, in the coastal Oregon town of Lester Bay, Police Lt. Marks (Jeffrey Donovan) and his team are examining a bloody and mystifying crime scene. Inside a house, a woman and her six-year-old daughter have been killed and severely mutilated, with what look like bite and claw wounds all over their remains.

Outside by the train tracks, there’s the body of a naked man. The autopsy by local coroner Dr. Ratterman (Jeb Berrier) reveals that the man was 64 and died months before the other two victims, but his body isn’t decaying normally. What the heck is going on here?

When the dead man is identified as Peter Stump, Marks’s research leads him to Meg – who is astonished by both the case and the fact that Stump is her father, who left his wife and then-four-year-old daughter in 1991 without a word or further contact.

Meg is understandably still furious with her father’s desertion, but between her curiosity and her concern that there could be more killings if these aren’t solved, she accepts Marks’s urging to lend her expertise to the investigation.

It’s almost an hour into THE CYCLE before Marks and Ratterman start to consider that something supernatural may be the culprit. It takes Meg a while longer. Normally, this kind of character blindness is exasperating, but Meg has had so much piled on her that we grant her some leeway, especially as her skepticism doesn’t get in the way of forward movement.

There are a couple of big clues early in Ratterman’s examination that point to what’s happening, although the script, by director Jordan Downey & cowriter Kevin Stewart, adds some intriguing new rules.

It would be telling to say exactly which movie, but Downey and his practical special effects makeup team clearly revere and have lovingly replicated a groundbreaking-in-its-day transformation sequence, putting their own spin on the details. No matter how familiar one may be with their inspiration, the work here is impressive.

THE CYCLE maintains a good pace, with suitably drab, creepy surroundings. It does fool around with when certain things are happening in a way that seems like a cheat to justify jump scares, but this is thankfully not frequent.

Woll, Donovan and Berrier all give unfussy, strong performances, and David Meyers Gregory is highly sympathetic as someone who keeps trying to do the right thing.

THE CYCLE is just different enough to feel relatively fresh, and it delivers on both the procedural and horror fronts. For those who want a bit more mythology, we get an in-character, in-depth explanation of how this cycle began over the end credits.

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