May

The Bottom Line: A horror film about a disaffected, morbid young woman and her attempts to connect with something (or anything) in her life, May is not always easy to watch but if you like disturbing films then you should check it out; it's a polarizing motion picture but it's different enough to be worth watching.

I remember catching this movie, late night on some channel somewhere and I loved it. It has a great deliberate pace and the whole thing felt awkward and creepy, in the most intentionally good way. The movie leads up to an awesome final sequence and the main character May, played so chillingly well by Angela Bettis that it will...well, give you chills. I would say more thriller than horror, but if you are into these types of movie I think you will love it...

The credits at the end of this film had long stopped running, and yet, I was still riveted on my couch, wondering what I had just watched. Lucky McKee has created a deliciously deranged piece of art! Both poignant, funny, sad, sweet, ultimately disturbing in a profound way and cringe-worthy, May is an underrated and touching piece of cinematography. The movie, although a "horror" flick, is so much more than that. It is the subtle painting of a mentally disturbed mind, the excitement and joy of blooming romance, the harshness and cruelty of the human being, and then at the end the frightening reality that in some ways, we are always alone. In the title role of May Canady, Angela Bettis is phenomenal. This was, without a doubt, Bettis' film. From the moment she began speaking to her doll at the beginning to the tragic moments at the end, she will captivate you. I found myself both intrigued and disturbed that even at the end, I sympathized with May. She made me cringe and ga... Read more

Ever since I first saw this film, I've tried to pin down what specifically was so good about it but with varying success. It begins with an unnamed woman screaming into a mirror while covering a bloody eye-socket, cuts to doll limbs falling past a black void, and then to her childhood. After this, one's first thought is "this film better make good on this strange beginning and somehow reconcile it". Then there's the strange tone shifts, from light-hearted comedy to anguished violence that refuses to be mere slasher fodder. In a lot of ways, the narrative of the film follows the protagonists experience of the story. May is a stunted child. She lives in a world of dolls and dresses that she made. Her life-long companion is a doll her mother gave her. She lives in a world that she created and controls, but has an urge for something a little more substantial. Her child-like behavior and perspective are comical at first, and so are the reactions other people have to it, but as the ... Read more

"So many pretty parts, no pretty wholes" is my favorite quotation from the movie. I love this damn movie. Unforgettable and spooky, it speaks to the invisible, lonley freak in all of us. May is such an admirable killer, sweet and quiet, cute and loving...just not loved back. The music, the victims' characters throughout the movie and the ending add greatly to its artistic integrity; the ending could not have made it more of a masterpiece.