The Woman

Horrorphile

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The Woman

August 16th 2011 05:17

Chris Cleek (Sean Bridgers) is a successful country lawyer with a large farm property and a family, wife Belle (Angela Bettis), older teenage daughter Peggy (Lauren Ashley Carter), younger teenage son Brian (Zach Rand), and young daughter Darlin’ (Shyla Molhusen). Chris is the patriarch with a capital P, and he has the hunting rifle and dogs to prove it. But there’s something missing in his life; a sense of adventure, danger even, something to tap into his primal urge, bestial even. Chris finds what he’s looking for whilst on a little pre-dinner search and destroy mission in the surrounding woods: the woman (Pollyanna McIntosh), an Amazonian-esque, but very feral fugitive from civilisation roughing it in the forest caves and rivers of the Northeast wilderness.

Sean Bridgers as Chris

Chris returns the next day armed with a strong net and promptly catches himself a piece of wild ass. In the family’s outside cellar he shackles the woman securely and presents his find to the family. Their virtuous mission, should the family choose to accept it, and accept it they will, is to civilise this savage (and yes, savage she is, as Chris’s finger stump will attest to). She needs cleaning and taming, but no one else is to know of their secret family project. Belle and Peggy are somewhat dumbstruck at Chris’s orders, but Brian, being a chip off the old block, embraces the challenge. Kid sister Darlin’ quietly observes.

Pollyanna McIntosh as the woman

If this scenario sounds vaguely absurd, then you’re halfway to understanding and appreciating The Woman (2011), director and co-writer Lucky McKee’s darkly comic nightmare take on the All-American nuclear family. This is a tale of domesticity gone satirically awry, this is - to facetiously use a term I abhor, but in the contest of this movie, strangely applicable – an “elevated exploitation” flick. The Woman plays on conventional notions of morality and horror and subverts them in curious ways. The black sense of humour, and this is coal black indeed, is the spine of the movie, without it and the movie would collapse under its own ridiculousness.

Angela Bettis as Belle

Co-written with acclaimed novelist Jack Ketchum, The Woman is a sequel-of-sorts. Ketchum wrote a brilliant, and profoundly horrific, story called Off Season, one of my favourite horror novels. It has yet to be adapted into a movie, but the sequel has, Offspring (2009). Off Season was about a clan of inbred cannibals living in a cave on the Northeast coast of America, terrorising (and eating) the locals. Offspring, which Ketchum scripted, continued the story with one of the surviving cannibal children now as an adult with her own family. The Woman takes that character, credited only as the woman, and thrusts her into an entirely new environment; she is now the victim being mistreated by a civilised man with deeply questionable motives and a seriously bent psychology.

Zach Rand as Brian

I watched The Woman expecting to witness something far more outrageous than what I saw. To be honest, I wanted to be shocked and disturbed. I was hankering after it, especially from an American movie. The hype following The Woman was provocative; a controversial screening at Sundance that had walkouts and abuse being hurled at the filmmakers, critics quotes that had me very intrigued, for example, “The Woman is so nasty that you can’t turn away... It is the best movie of this kind since The Human Centipede,” said Ugo.com. And there was another reference to The Woman that posed the question, has horror had gone too far? Gone too far??! Seriously. Then I discover, much to my bewilderment, that the Melbourne International Film Festival programme has The Woman listed with an accompanying “Some scenes may disturb” warning. No other movie listing shares this warning. Man, I’m baffled by the censors. Next to The Woman is Kill List (2011), a movie with has some genuinely disturbing violence. And above The Woman in the programme is Hobo with a Shotgun (2010), another tongue-in-cheek grindhouse-flavoured offering, albeit a little more obviously comic, but no less “offensive”. Neither of these movies have warnings.

The Woman Sean Bridgers and Lauren Ashley Carter

Chris tries to comfort troubled Peggy (Lauren Ashley Carter)

The truth of the matter is that hardened horrorphiles won’t find The Woman shocking, disturbing, or offensive, but they will find it entertaining. The real horror, the savage revenge, doesn’t kick in until the final quarter of the movie, and even then there’s a schlocky element to the on-screen viscera, which is courtesy of Greg Nicotero and team. There’s some dark sexual shenanigans, but Lucky McKee directs with obvious restraint. This brings me to another reservation I have, not with the movie, but with the MPAA censor’s warning: Rated R for strong bloody violence, torture, a rape, disturbing behavior, some graphic nudity, and language. Okay, so what’s the reasoning behind the additional “disturbing behaviour” warning, when there is clearly reprehensible stuff already listed in front of it. And where was the so-called “graphic nudity”? Okay, so there’s a medium long shot of the woman stark naked standing shackled which lasts a couple of seconds. Is that considered graphic nudity now? Certainly in the more permissive 70s when full-frontal female nudity was as common as mustaches on men the R-rating didn’t specify “graphic nudity”. Perhaps it was because Pollyanna McIntosh was au naturale, of which I thank Lucky and Polly for that attention to detail. I think I’m clutching at straws, but hell bells, teeth and smells; cinema censorship is definitely descending into a new conservatism.

Carlee Baker plays Peggy's concerned teacher

Lucky McKee has made a very effective black comedy that reminded me of The Stepfather (1987), which, curiously, is another movie that confused and polarised audiences and critics. Not as strange and surreal as May (2002), but no less compelling, and certainly no less darkly funny. The performances are all excellent, especially Sean Bridgers. Pollyanna McIntosh’s role is largely spent shackled, and her dialogue is kept in check with grunts, snarls and the occasional arcane Celtic utterance, but under all her grime (and you can just imagine her stench) she exudes a potent carnal energy and her eyes possess a palpable menace.

Chris spies his nemesis

McKee chooses to offset many of the scenes with indie rock and raw folk songs. Lyrically they provide a reflection of the scene or overall movie’s content, and musically they play as a counterpoint, but they didn’t always work for me, often clashing with the mood and tone and even alienating me from the narrative. I would have much preferred an acoustic and/or electric score, something rustic and moody, but incidental and used sparingly.

The contemptuous leer of father and son

The Woman has an effective “sting”, but it’s not at the end of its tail. The clues to this revelation are, in fact, laid out very early on. This is not your average American family, no siree; you want dysfunctional relations, then here’s the shovel, you want fucked-up compassion, hey, here’s the wheelbarrow, you want all the beans spilled, then Lucky winks and says whoa, maybe you should just watch the movie again. Now, that kind of authoritative suggestion smacks of cult sensibility to me. Hmmm, The Woman might just age like beef jerky and moonshine.

Here’s the trailer:

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