MOVIE REVIEW

May  (2003)

Starring: Angela Bettis, Jeremy Sisto, Anna Faris
Director: Lucky McKee

Rating: R

Studio: Lions Gate Films

Release Date: 2.07.03

Review Posted: 6.17.03

Spoilers: None

By Sara Michelle Fetters

"Don’t Make Her Mad – Bettis Shines in Gory May"

May (Angela Bettis, Girl Interrupted) is a bit strange. As a kid she had to wear an eye path to help heal a lazy eye, but because of it she ended up becoming disenfranchised from emotional contacts with children her own age. Essentially growing up alone with only a strange doll given to her by her mother as a friend, as an adult May now finds herself hungering for human connection no matter what the cost.

That connection just might be with car mechanic Adam (Jeremy Sisto, Wrong Turn). May is attracted to the retro-ly handsome man first through his beautiful hands, just the type she’s always imagined caressing and stroking her face, but soon discovers he’s just as warped in sensibility as she is. In fact, Mark’s an aspiring filmmaker in the vein of Dario Argento with a student film that starts like a nausea-inducing kiss-fest and ends with a gory cannibalistic make out session prompting May to ponder, "I don’t think she would have gotten his whole finger in one bite – it’s not very believable." Words to fall in love by, to be sure.

But, if Adam doesn’t work out, there is always Polly (Anna Faris, The Hot Chick), the receptionist/file clerk at the local pet hospital May nurses at. Polly’s intrigued by May, from the retro-chic clothing the girl sews for herself to her penchant for poking bloody holes in her fingers when she’s down, everything about May gets her more than a little hot under the collar. Polly wants May badly, but when she does finally get the meek and socially unstable woman is she asking for far more than she ever bargained for?

That’s because May isn’t interested in just being someone’s friend or casual love interest, she’s after perfection. And, even if it has to be put together piece by beautiful piece, she’s going to build herself a friend everyone can be proud of. It’s just like her mother (Merle Kennedy, The Perfect Storm) always told her as a child, "If you can’t meet friends, than make yourself one." Granted, she was talking about dolls not some sort of revisionist take on Mary Shelly’s "Frankenstein." But be that as it may, this is one girl who’s going to find a friend no matter how much blood is spilled.

And that is precisely what is going to happen in writer/director Lucky McKee’s film May. A story of a disturbed and mentally unbalanced girl looking only for love and acceptance, this is a horror film that would make Argento (Suspiria), Stuart Gordon (Re-Animator), Lucio Fulci (The Beyond), a pre-Spider-Man Sam Raimi (The Evil Dead trilogy) and a pre-LOTR Peter Jackson (Dead Alive) proud. And why not? It’s completely rooted in themes and ideas sprung directly out of their works. In other words: May is graphic horror exploitation with a capitol “E,” and if it sounds like I think that’s a bad thing than guess again. This movie got under my skin.

A great deal of the credit for that goes Bettis’ lead performance. At first, her May is a ball of fidgets and harsh movements. She’s so childlike and demure that you’d swear the animal nurse was autistic. But why shouldn’t she be? All her life she’s been treated as something of an outcast, too different that even the slightly weird don’t fully accept her. But Bettis goes beyond the usual stutters and tics, slowly evolving into something far more genuinely creepy. This is a woman who’s been shut out of life, kept away from making friends other than the ones she has made for herself. Yet, it isn’t until May starts becoming Dr. Frankenstein that she gains real self assurance and suddenly Bettis’ timorous mannerisms morph into a malevolent cockiness that’s at once empowering and scary-as-hell all at the same time. The mouse is now the lion and the actress’ transformation from one to the other is startling.

Still, nothing in May should really come as a shock to the casual graphic horror aficionado. McKee paints her picture in very Burton-esque hues, the film moving as if it is a giant gothic tome poem in the same fairy tale colors as Edward Scissorhands or Sleepy Hollow. Even the doll given to May by her mother seems to be an exact replica of Sally from The Nightmare Before Christmas, and I couldn’t help but think ol’Jack Skellington was soon going to be making an appearance at any given moment. It also doesn’t help that both Adam and Polly are stock horror movie idiots, only seeking their own supercilious fulfillment over the needs of even those closest to them. Faced with such self-possessed imbecilic “friends,” it’s a wonder May doesn’t become scalpel-crazy sooner.

But what McKee does get right is the surreal luminescent macabre that can be found so devilishly decadent in Argento’s best work. May is clearly a film inspired by the great Italian horror director, traces of Suspiria and Tenebre readily apparent, and the director gets dead on the sort of uncontrollable paralyzing dread that permeates his best work. From Jaye Barnes-Luckett’s kinetically pulsating score and song arrangements to Steve Yedlin’s exquisitely rancorous cinematography, McKee deftly handles the mechanics of setting a truly ominous stage on which to set her tale. Even if I’d felt like I’d seen it all before, May is a film I just couldn’t tear my eyes away from.

Rating: 3 out of 4

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