(no resemblance at all to any ac- tual youth movement) exceeding even CLASS OF 1984 verminous- ness to approach the style of pantomime dementia found in Troma’s contemporary efforts. Blair and Wilkes play fairly natu- rally, as if they were in a serious slasher movie, but Stockwell, Hunter and Dierkop chew the scenery. Screenwriter Mikel An- gel (THE LOVE BUTCHER, PSY- CHIC KILLER) has a referential bit part, and room is found for friends of the production like Luana Patten (SONG OF THE SOUTH, ROCK PRETTY BABY), Stacy Alden (A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET III: DREAM WAR- RIORS), John Goff (screen- writer of DRIVE-IN MASSACRE, HUNDRA and MISTY BEET- HOVEN: THE MUSICAL) and spaghetti western fixture Lin- coln Tate (ACQUASANTA JOE). Bereft of special features or contextualising material, GRO- TESQUE is presented in a stan- dard-frame transfer, a few grades above VHS quality. It’s eccentric enough to be more interesting than TIME WALKER, but is by no means any good.
THE WOMAN 2011, Vivendi,
$29.95, 103m 12s, BR By Eric Somer
Co-produced/directed by An- drew van den Houten (co-pro- ducer, THE GIRL NEXT DOOR) and adapted for the screen by Jack Ketchum (one of several pseudonyms used by Dallas Wil- liam Mayr, Jr.), 2009’s OFF- SPRING tells the morbid tale of cannibal freaks responsible for many missing peeps off the coast of Maine. In this more cinemati- cally satisfying follow-up, the tables are turned and the eponymous WOMAN (Pollyanna McIntosh) now finds herself strung up in, more or less, the same fashion
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her tribe secured its victims in the prior film. Poetic justice, or so it seems. In THE WOMAN—directed by Lucky McKee (MAY, RED), who co- wrote with Ketchum—family patri- arch Chris Cleek (Sean Bridgers) serves as self-appointed warden of the last-cannibal-standing from OFFSPRING. His motivation has sexual implications from the very beginning, as he observes his soon-to-be prisoner’s serious curves on display while she bathes in a wilderness stream. Under the guise of domesticating her into re- spectability, he captures the wild lass in a purely premeditated act and holds her prisoner on his property, restraining her with sleep-depriving shackles (ie., THE GIRL NEXT DOOR) without con- sideration for bathroom breaks or badly needed dental work. Unsur- prisingly, the gal shows little grati- tude, and consumes a healthy portion of her wannabe master’s ring finger at the earliest oppor- tunity, signifying that a significant change is in the works for the featured married couple, not that the marriage in question could be described as fulfilling for ei- ther party. And with a dame in their dungeon, things could not project any worse for their future, as THE WOMAN builds to its vividly violent climax.
For those familiar with
DEADGIRL (2008), parallels to THE WOMAN are not tricky to spot: the dangerous sex appeal of the animalistic female captive, the egocentric abusiveness of the captors, the captive’s ultimate escape, and the assumed con- tinuation of the “evil” female’s preferred mode of existence. Like the proverbial voter who chooses the candidate he or she hates the least, the viewer is forced to con- sider between two rather unap- pealing major characters: is the world better off with the sadistic country lawyer Cleek and the
degradation of the traditional family he personifies, or the can- nibal woman and the bloodthirsty tribal community she upholds? Cleek has a point when he de- clares the countryside unsafe with a wild woman lurking about, es- pecially considering the maternal instincts that guide her in both OFFSPRING and THE WOMAN. Molding children into her cannibal ways is an obvious priority, and she is nothing if not a determined sort.
Apart from the title charac- ter, the other adult women come up short in terms of in- ternal strength and the ability to make sound decisions. Belle (McKee’s frequent collaborator Angela Bettis) cannot even gen- erate an appropriate response to her husband’s dismissive slap to her face, Cleek’s sexy admin- istrative assistant Dorothy (Lauren Schroeder) hasn’t a clue what kind of man she works for, and geom- etry teacher Genevieve Raton (Carlee Baker) is not taken seri- ously by her students. Though all personable and attractive, these women fit too snugly into cul- tural stereotypes and ultimately bore Cleek, who is instead drawn to the untamed sexuality of his cellar prisoner. As com- pared to their elders, the film’s younger ladies exhibit more admirable qualities, as when Darlin’ (Shyla Molhusen) plays music for her family’s rehabilita- tion case, and Peggy (Lauren Ashley Carter) shows sympathy to the woman’s unenviable situ- ation. But who is best fit to men- tor these young girls through their formative years?
Both a cannibal film and a captivity narrative, THE WOMAN coerces the viewer into rooting for the feral female, who stands in direct contrast to her keeper. Cleek is an abusive, smug, domi- neering husband to submissive wife Belle and father of dangerous
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