May (2002)

I love this. It's an ugly-duckling movie, a romantic (very dark) comedy that's funny and sad and touching (with just a few hints at carnage to come) until you hit the 1:06 mark, when it suddenly turns into a horror film. It's as if you're watching Sixteen Candles and then suddenly someone replaces the last reel with The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
This is a real star turn for Angela Bettis, who is one of my favorite horror actresses. She is the most sympathetic killer in slasher film history. She's just a sweet, sad, lonely girl, whose only ambition is to be liked, and who is destined to be disappointed in even that simple and pathetic desire. And it isn't that the people around her are bad people. The movie dodges the Cinderella clichés; there are no wicked step-sisters in this (although May's mother is pretty damned creepy), and May's own expectations and behavior are as much to blame for her problems as any character flaws in the people around her. Still, you're hoping for the best for her, hoping that Adam (Jeremy Sisto) and Polly (Anna Faris) will somehow muster the extra understanding May needs. “This is a damaged girl, and she requires a little extra effort,” you find yourself saying, “but maybe she's worth it. Give her a chance.” That's what happens when you watch this; you just keep thinking, “Why won't anyone be her friend? I would be her friend. I would be nice to her.” Although I say this having something of a history of relationships with troubled people, so maybe that's just my own inclination and not everyone will feel that way.
Anyway, yeah, it's the kind of part that could easily, in the hands of an inferior actress, become campy and silly. If May had been played by just about anyone else, the movie would have been a ridiculous failure, but she's so genuine in it that she breaks your heart. I mean, she is seriously creepy in places, but mostly she's so hopeful and clumsy that her disappointments hurt to watch. This is one of those movies that is only as good as its star, and Bettis really elevates it. As I say, this is a star turn for her.
Or, more accurately, it would have been a star turn if anyone had ever actually seen the movie. Word of mouth killed this picture, I think because it's so genre-defying. Horror fans hated it because the first 1:06 is (as noted above) a sort of dark romantic comedy. They didn't wanna wait that long for the bloodshed to begin. And non-horror fans, who appreciated the beginning of the movie, all went “Aaaaaauuuggghhhh!!!” and ran screaming from the last twenty minutes, which include a couple of seriously gruesome bits.
Critics didn't seem to know what to make of it (nearly every review included a variation on the phrase “This is not really a horror movie,” but no one could offer a coherent explanation of exactly what it was), and bad buzz from the teeny-boppers (“Gawd, it was so boring” from the slasher crowd, “Ewww, it was so gross” from the guttersnipes) killed it. A few reviews were positive: Roger Ebert liked it, and the Village Voice saw the beauty in it, but mostly it got either trashed or ignored. I'd like to think of it as a movie that has something for everyone, but instead it seemed to be a movie that pissed everyone off. Maybe the swing was too wide for most folks to handle. It's more challenging than most horror films (which is to say challenging), and requires more of an emotional investment. Maybe some folks were turned off by that.
Lucky McKee's direction in his debut is pretty good, and his script is excellent. He has never equaled this since, but I'm still hoping. Sisto is really very good as the boy May falls for. You expect Adam to just use May and toss her aside, and for that to be what sets her off, but McKee is a better writer than that. Adam is a good guy who genuinely likes May but gets deeply (and justifiably) creeped out by her, and Sisto plays him with a great deal of depth and charm. Faris isn't bad as the co-worker/possible love interest. She's a great comic actress, and it would be hard to take her seriously in a dramatic role, but McKee has written a fairly light, semi-humorous part that suits her; she basically flirts and makes jokes while all the dramatic heavy lifting is done by Bettis and Sisto, who are better suited to the task. The supporting cast is a little flat (except for the thirty seconds of Nora Zehetner we get), but there's very little screen time for anyone but our main three actors, so it doesn't matter much.
Our young century has produced some good horror films and some bad horror films, and I haven't yet made my list of the top ten, but when I do, this one has a real chance to be on it. And Angela Bettis, she'll always be on my list.

BEST THING ABOUT THE FILM: When Adam shows May the gory, weird film he's made of two lovers (non-euphemistically) eating each other, and asks what she thinks of it. "It's sweet," she says. "Sweet?" he asks, surprised. "Yes," she says, "I don't think she could've got his finger off in one bite, though. That part seemed a little farfetched." It's a perfect little capsule.

WORST THING ABOUT THE FILM: I don't know why McKee starts with the shot of May standing bleeding and screaming in front of her mirror. I think it takes away a little from the movie. There's no reason to show us where we're going before we get there, right?

SCORE: 8/10

LISTS: #25 on my Favorites of the Naughts