Netflix brings you....May
May, 2003
Spoliers Galore: A weird movie.
Billed as a horror film, this was a disappointing until the last 30 minutes when the action starts to pick up and make sense. (This says little for my level of culture, I know, but you really needed her to start killing people for the film to have any point at all.) The early scenes create a successful atmosphere of discomfiture, but the acting (lead played by Angela Bettis) was over-melodramatic and not consistently believable. Not that I know how to play the character any better. Supporting parts were played with equal inconsistency and were lackluster, as well, although overall it did cohere.
I think this was the result of poor writing, and perhaps poor direction, rather than actor failure. The script, while an interesting-ish concept, has some glaring flaws. Some things just out place (weird accent of her boss?, weird predatory lesbian co-worker? and what the fuck was up with the blind kids?!) and some important missing information. The segue from her nasty childhood to "LA" (says the movie jacket) was incomplete and confusing. I assume we're supposed to assume that she killed her parents, since they are never mentioned again.
But it is the plot device of the doll, the central device of the script, that failed me utterly. I never understood what the doll was about, where its power came from, what was up the with breaking glass case, and most of all, why in the world she took the doll to the blind kids' school. (Obviously Susie's power was derived from May's psycho mother, but the evolution of the Susie/May relationship was left to the viewer's imagination, which for me is a major, unexcuseable gap, because it is the most interesting possible angle of the story.)
The last 40 minutes pretty much make up for the previous plot failures in their intensity and execution. May's weirdness evolves in a way that completely coheres to the logic of the foregoing events (without explaining them at all). The "collection of perfect parts" is well written and portrayed. The only thing I did not care for was the gratuitous imagery of floating silk cloth while she manufatures her new friend - such style of imagery having been missing in all the previous footage, and in my opinion, it did not fit in with the newly constructed atmosphere.
The final five minutes were so creepy and so well done that they do make the previous 88 minutes worth having watched, but only because it was a short film. If this film was 2 hrs 33 mins, I would say to give it a pass.
Dark and weird. I sound like I'm panning it, but it is unique enough that it bears watching even though it was not perfectly executed. More interesting than other no-name horror films of late...
This is a 3 out of 5 stars.
Spoliers Galore: A weird movie.
Billed as a horror film, this was a disappointing until the last 30 minutes when the action starts to pick up and make sense. (This says little for my level of culture, I know, but you really needed her to start killing people for the film to have any point at all.) The early scenes create a successful atmosphere of discomfiture, but the acting (lead played by Angela Bettis) was over-melodramatic and not consistently believable. Not that I know how to play the character any better. Supporting parts were played with equal inconsistency and were lackluster, as well, although overall it did cohere.
I think this was the result of poor writing, and perhaps poor direction, rather than actor failure. The script, while an interesting-ish concept, has some glaring flaws. Some things just out place (weird accent of her boss?, weird predatory lesbian co-worker? and what the fuck was up with the blind kids?!) and some important missing information. The segue from her nasty childhood to "LA" (says the movie jacket) was incomplete and confusing. I assume we're supposed to assume that she killed her parents, since they are never mentioned again.
But it is the plot device of the doll, the central device of the script, that failed me utterly. I never understood what the doll was about, where its power came from, what was up the with breaking glass case, and most of all, why in the world she took the doll to the blind kids' school. (Obviously Susie's power was derived from May's psycho mother, but the evolution of the Susie/May relationship was left to the viewer's imagination, which for me is a major, unexcuseable gap, because it is the most interesting possible angle of the story.)
The last 40 minutes pretty much make up for the previous plot failures in their intensity and execution. May's weirdness evolves in a way that completely coheres to the logic of the foregoing events (without explaining them at all). The "collection of perfect parts" is well written and portrayed. The only thing I did not care for was the gratuitous imagery of floating silk cloth while she manufatures her new friend - such style of imagery having been missing in all the previous footage, and in my opinion, it did not fit in with the newly constructed atmosphere.
The final five minutes were so creepy and so well done that they do make the previous 88 minutes worth having watched, but only because it was a short film. If this film was 2 hrs 33 mins, I would say to give it a pass.
Dark and weird. I sound like I'm panning it, but it is unique enough that it bears watching even though it was not perfectly executed. More interesting than other no-name horror films of late...
This is a 3 out of 5 stars.