Alex Cox's 'Dead Souls' Is Peak Self-Sabotage

Alex Cox had something going once — that raw, uncompromising energy that made his early work feel dangerous and alive. But somewhere along the way, he decided that what the world really needed was a retro Marxist Western dressed up in punk theater. Dead Souls is the latest evidence that he's doubling down on that bad bet.

The film apparently starts with a mystery hook, at least. But once that thread gets pulled, you're left staring at a desert of didactic posturing and what Variety calls "arid" filmmaking — the opposite of the visceral, visceral work that made Cox worth paying attention to in the first place.

It's a weird self-own for a director with real talent. Instead of trusting his instincts and letting his vision breathe, Cox keeps tying himself to this increasingly tired aesthetic: punk-as-pretension, Marxism-as-punchline, Western-as-sermon. And honestly? It's hard to watch.

The tragedy isn't that Dead Souls is bad. It's that Cox keeps choosing the same dead weight, over and over, fully aware it's dragging him down.

Read the full story at Variety → https://variety.com/2026/film/reviews/dead-souls-review-alex-cox-1236834377/