The Beguiled directed by Sofia Coppola opens in an enveloping fog as the camera crawls through the gnarled and mossed branches of what is meant to be a Civil War period Virginian landscape. Despite the haze of the fog, the colors and textures retain a rich fairytale-like quality. As we move through the dense wood, we hear the eerie high-pitched tune of a little girl singing as she gathers a basket of mushrooms. The camera trails behind her ominously. She knows she has strayed too far from home when suddenly a critically wounded enemy soldier John McBurney (Colin Farrell) emerges from behind a tree begging her for medical care. Following this reveal, it seems that one of the most conventionally frightful moments in the film has already passed. Indeed, Coppola builds the suspense of her film with a much slower burn than what is expected from a more traditional Hollywood Horror with over-the-top shocks. As soon as the opening sequence, she conjures fear in the audience through an unsettling atmosphere ripe with quiet suspense without relying on jump scares to do the emotional legwork.