Editor’s Note: This was originally published for FANGORIA on June 6, 2003, and we’re proud to share it as part of The Gingold Files.
May opens with a bang—or a scream, and an image making it clear that writer/director Lucky McKee is not going to skimp on the visceral shock. Yet for a while after that attention-grabbing start, McKee only hints at the potential for gruesomeness to come, instead devoting most of the running time to a character study of its titular heroine. Like another horror film named after its female protagonist, Carrie, May allows us to get to know its heroine well enough that when she finally makes her descent into violence, we understand why she’s doing what she’s doing, even as we’re cringing.
This is not to suggest that McKee is simply working a variation on Stephen King’s classic; rather than submerge his socially awkward misfit in the social hell of high school, he catches up to May (Angela Bettis) post-graduation (following a couple of scenes of her childhood), living a largely solitary existence. Well-practiced at sewing and admittedly into “weird” and gross stuff, she’s found the perfect job—assisting at an animal hospital, handling the most unpleasant medical tasks without batting an eye. Despite the flirtatious come-ons of co-worker Polly (Anna Faris from the Scary Movies), May’s only real “friend” is a doll named Suzy, which she keeps shut away in a display case.
Then she meets Adam (Jeremy Sisto), who’s not only hunky and good-looking, but also has an appreciation of the darker and grosser things in life. He’s even made a short-film tribute to Dario Argento (complete with a “Regia di” credit) called Jack & Jill, in which two young lovers literally consume each other. Needless to say, May is turned on—but her odd proclivities prove to be too much for even Adam to handle, precipitating a descent into madness signaled by the growing cracks in Suzy’s glass house.
That’s as heavy with the visual metaphors as McKee gets; he largely keeps his filmmaking grounded in personal drama, and is, well, lucky to have Bettis in the lead role. With her mousy but oddly lovely looks, the actress is a perfect physical match for the role, and her performance is nuanced and perfectly pitched. Her May starts out charmingly eccentric and painfully sympathetic, while the actress still makes it clear that her pathology has a deeper, darker side. Yet even as the blacker elements of her personality become more prominent, leading to a significant amount of bloodshed, Bettis keeps May credible, so that the latter sections play as tragic as well as horrific. (It’s no surprise that, after May screened at Sundance 2002, Bettis won the role of Carrie in NBC’s recent televersion, where she was the bright spot in an otherwise misconceived remake.)
If McKee succeeds in making the final act of May-hem seem frighteningly inevitable, this section also has the feel of a foregone conclusion. What May does here isn’t as intriguing as what has led up to this point, and it’s the gore itself, rather than her actions, that are most shocking. But McKee doesn’t let the movie simply descend into gory spectacle, and he leavens the proceedings with a wicked streak of black humor. There are a number of funny details (love Adam’s answering machine), and McKee and Bettis wring some amusement from May’s eccentricities, yet the laughs don’t come at the character’s expense. From that startling first shot to the macabrely poetic conclusion, they keep the audience on May’s side—even as they make it clear that it’s advisable to stay on her good side.
