May (2003)
Directed by Lucky McKee
A socially awkward veterinary assistant with a lazy eye and obsession with perfection descends into depravity after developing a crush on a boy with perfect hands.
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By the film's end, all the black humor acts to reinforce a parody of classic horror films such as "Carrie" and "Frankenstein" and "Repulsion."
With a passing resemblance to last year's "Secretary" and even the old Stephen King classic, "Carrie" (in which Bettis played the title role in the recent TV version), McKee wastes no time in setting up the story.
The movie will inevitably be compared to " Carrie ," not least because Bettis starred in the 2002 TV version of that story.
It wants to be a "Carrie" with a modern-day "Frankenstein" twist, but it lacks the smarts behind the weirdness.
Bettis performs very well in a role that's reminiscent of Stephen King's "Carrie" (not surprisingly, she played Carrie White in the 2002 television remake of Brian De Palma's film of the same name) but the stitched-together denouement, while definitely disturbing, feels contrived and less effective than the rest of this interesting little creepfest.
The scorching horror of "Carrie" and the genre satisfying thrills of "Re-Animator" coalesce to conceive âMayâ, a delicious new horror feature from director Larry McKee, and something quite unlike anything weâve seen in eons.
"May" has been described as a tribute to "Frankenstein," but it also recalls Herschell Gordon Lewis' notorious "Blood Feast" — except that McKee wisely trusts us to complete the film's horrors in our imagination.
Years later working as a vet’s surgical assistant, May remains lonely, socially awkward and full-blown “weird,” the latter of which proves initially appealing to mechanic Adam (Jeremy Sisto) – a guy whose apartment boasts a shrine to Argento’s Opera – until he discovers that May’s strangeness extends far past his own threshold for the bizarre.
Lucky McKee takes a look at the end of the world and it comes half-blinded before a student version of Claire Denis' Trouble Every Day and a poster-shrine to Dario Argento's Opera .
“May” takes a cracked view of 1 Corinthians’ idea of leaving childish things behind — blending the brooding of Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein” with the bleak, acrid tone of Alkaline Trio lyrics and the most frightening sing-song horror-film score since Goblin’s nightmarish prog-rock whispers in “Suspiria.”
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McKee's interest in dividing lines will find its literal manifestation in the spider-webbing glass of May's doll case and, inevitably, the Jigsaw/Blind Beast-lines of vivisection and reconstruction.
A quiet, solemn veterinary assistant, May seeks the perfect companion in something other than a doll in a glass booth (May's doll, shades of Tippi Hedren in her own glass cages in Marnie and The Birds)--observing that no matter how perfect people seem initially, they never fail to disappoint her.
A patchwork of Dario Argento, Claire Denis’ Trouble Every Day, and Mary Shelley, Lucky McKee’s May is all gouged eyes and severed limbs, cannibal love and stitched-together monstrosities.
Lucky McKee takes a look at the end of the world and it comes half-blinded before a student version of Claire Denis' Trouble Every Day and a poster-shrine to Dario Argento's Opera .
Though the cat-hating, chili dog-loving McKee seems loath to take May, a movie he says was informed by Taxi Driver and Repulsion, too seriously in front of his giggly peers, it's clear that he invested his heart, soul, and intellect in the production, ushering it through multiple drafts, reshoots, and re-edits.
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While most horror films of late have taken a spoof or teenage stance ("Scream," "I Know What You did Last Summer," Final Destination ), May returns to the golden age when horror was actually bloody.
See May confide in her best friend, a ghostly doll that looks like it escaped from "The Nightmare Before Christmas."