Nightmare Alley is a stylish neo-noir that's as seedy as its title sounds.

Ravvy Cooper plays Stan, an ambitious 1940s ricketer who joins a traveling carnival and

learns to develop his own mentalist act.

An encounter with a mysterious psychologist played by a cape lunchette leads to a faithful

and destructive turn of events.

The movie is directed by Guillermo del Toro and inspired by the book in 1947 movie adaptation

of the same name.

In the filmmaker's typical fashion, the period-peace visuals are striking and the cast is robust,

including Tony Collette, David Trutheran, and Bruny Mara.

But does it work?

I'm Aisha Harris and today we're talking about Nightmare Alley on Pop Culture Happy Hour

from NPR.

Joining me today is writer Mariah Gates.

Hello and welcome back to the show Mariah.

Hi, thanks for having me.

And also with us is Odie Henderson.

Odie is a film critic at RogerEbert.com.

It's great to have you back as well Odie.

Thanks, great to be back.

Yes.

And you both, I mean, part of the reason we wanted to have you on is because you both

are big film more fans, so I'm very excited to get into this with you.

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