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Four years after his sci-fi horror feature, “Annihilation,” writer-director Alex Garland took a sharp turn from the realms of science fiction for “Men.” Starring Jessie Buckley and Rory Kinnear in (multiple) lead roles, Garland’s folk-horror feature received a mixed-to-positive response from critics. General audiences, however, didn’t seem to care much for it.

The film follows the recently widowed Harper (Buckley), who rents a country cottage after the sudden death of her abusive husband. The peaceful solitude of the countryside is ripped apart by strange and terrifying encounters with the men of the local village, all played by Kinnear through costuming and digital effects. Garland’s narrative approach to themes of gendered violence is a mixed bag in the eyes of some critics, but it did receive praise for Buckley and Kinnear’s performances as well as its outlandish and unsettling visual direction.

Official production budget figures aren’t readily available for “Men,” but

They walk down the school hallway in slow motion, perfect outfits, hair billowing in the draft. No one crosses them, because crossing them would mean certain death — or worse, death of social status. Everyone hates them. Everyone wants to be them.

The Heathers, The Plastics, you name it: Each generation has a movie dedicated to the beautiful mean girls of high school. They have more bite than in cozy rom-coms or nostalgia-fueled coming-of-age films, and often, the girls are out for blood, be it through social sabotage or literal murder.

This subgenre has a wickedly fun time with the conventions of teenage girlhood, especially when it comes to the design choices. These movies are united in iconic fashion and specific visual palettes that play with the popular aesthetic conventions of their respective time periods. They bring an edge and a hardness to elements often associated with diminutive girlhood, be