The Woman Movie Review
The Woman Movie Review
Directed by Edward Lucky McKee, starring Sean Bridgers, Pollyanna McIntosh, and Angela Bettis
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I "get" that The Woman is a black satire on family values, feminism, freedom and other things that begin with the letter F, but that doesn't mean I liked it any more than I would have if I'd gone in as a totally unsuspecting horror movie fan.
I already had an inkling that I wouldn't care for the flick, based on the director's (Lucky McKee) and writer's (Jack Ketchum) previous works. (I should add that I've met both men, and I like them very much… it's nothing personal; in fact, that makes it altogether difficult to write reviews such as this.) McKee's other movies include May, Masters of Horror: Sick Girl, and The Woods. I didn't hate them but I was underwhelmed, especially in the face the praise McKee's fans so ardently espouse. In regard to Ketchum's previous screen bows, The Girl Next Door and The Offspring (in which "The Woman" character was first introduced), I found them gratuitous and distasteful. So what happens when you put the two together? You guessed it: an exploration of exploitation that's instantly forgettable.
In a brave performance Pollyanna McIntosh reprises her role as the titular wild woman of the woods who, in The Offspring, was the hunter… now, tables turned, she becomes the hunted. Literally netting her and bringing her home to his hastily-crafted underground bunker, smiling survivalist Chris Cleek (a too-glee Sean Bridgers) and his family keep the feral creature as they would an animal they want to tame and break. With one woman chained up below, and his wife (a wan, expressionless Angela Bettis) similarly dominated above-ground, Chris thinks he's the cock of the walk. Practically proclaiming himself patriarch of the year, he sets about using the captive as a teaching tool for his three kids to "learn responsibility". Of course, the primitive female isn't going to go down without a fight and what unfolds is her tale of torture, rape and eventual vengeance as seen through his eyes.
Again, while I do "get" what the filmmakers were trying to accomplish through music, cinematography and overall tone… I still didn't care for it. I especially despise the vocal soundtrack that kicks in at the most inappropriate moments for "effect" — not only is that manipulative little trick so overdone, the songs by first-time composer Sean Spillane are not music to my ears. Alex Vendler, whose cinematography was dreary and flat in Paris Hilton's unwatchable The Hottie and the Nottie, doesn't deviate from his pattern here.
The only things I can honestly give kudos for are McIntosh's performance and Robert Kurtzman's makeup effects (mostly mud and blood; this is an "I Spit on Your Grave" type grindhouser, not a horror movie per se).
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Reviewed by Staci Layne Wilson