A great horror movie makes more of an impression on the psyche than any other kind of film. Hell, even a bad horror flick can scar you for life. There’s a phrase that every seasoned horror fan loves to hear: “Have you ever seen . . . ?”
For the next 31 days, John E. Meredith will unearth some of his personal favorites that fell through the cracks, that are not so obvious, the kind that might even sneak up on you while you’re trying to sleep.
May 2002, USA. Written and directed by Lucky McKee. Starring Angela Bettis, Jeremy Sisto, Anna Faris, James Duval.
“You know how when you meet someone . . . and you think you like them? And then, the more you talk to them, you see parts that you don’t like.”
MAY is a kind of Frankenstein story as seen through the eyes of Carrie White.
Young May Canady grows up isolated, partially a result of the patch she’s forced to wear to correct a lazy eye. Her overbearing mother makes it clear that May is different, and that different is not good. At a childhood birthday party, sadly attended only by pitying adults, her mother gives her a creepy homemade doll. “If you can’t find a friend,” she says, “Make one.”
May is still trying to find a friend as an adult. Her eye has been corrected and she works as a veterinary assistant, stitching up injured animals, but her only companion is still the creepy doll (now kept safe in a glass case). She never really learned any social skills and her homemade clothes all look a bit like doll clothes. She says that people are not perfect, only parts of them are, so she fixates on certain parts. Crushing on local mechanic and aspiring horror filmmaker Adam, she falls in love with his hands. She tells her flirty lesbian co-worker Polly that she has a beautiful neck. It’s as if the eyepatch prevented her from ever seeing anything as a whole. This is initially how we get to see May’s world as well, in glimpses: Blood swirling into spilled milk. Sewing fabric spotted with blood.
Most of us have felt like an outsider at some point and can relate to May’s yearning to have a normal relationship. Part of us understands when she follows Adam to a coffee shop and sits watching him as he falls asleep. But then she slips up beside him and slowly reaches out to touch his sleeping face. Or tells him about a badly sutured dog whose owner came home to find his pet had disemboweled itself. She tells the story with a little laugh, like it’s an anecdote, oblivious to the look of horror on Adam’s face. She’s lived in her own world so long that this one doesn’t entirely make sense to her, and it makes us cringe to watch her. Adam tells her “I like weird,” but he won’t be able to keep up with how weird May gets.
Angela Bettis is amazing in the title role. She’s mostly attractive, but with peculiar features and jittery movements that make her look like a doll that’s been turned into a human girl. She’s not unlike Sissy Spacek in CARRIE (and it’s interesting to note that Bettis played a decent version of Carrie in an otherwise ill-advised tv movie remake). For me, part of the effectiveness of DePalma’s movie was that I understood why Carrie’s classmates didn’t like her. Hell, she was creepy. Part of the effectiveness of this movie, however, is that May still remains likable for me, no matter how weird she gets. I never stop hoping that it might all work out for her, even when she comes unhinged.
This is a film of loneliness, despair and horror, and yet, possibly, of hope. When one friend is broken, why not make another? It all leads to the final shot in this film, which might freak you out or even make you cry.