The Film: 5 stars
Meet May, played by Angela Bettis. Like most characters played by Angela Bettis (Belle Cleek in Lucky McKee’s The Woman, Ida Teeter in Lucky McKee’s Masters of Horror episode “Sick Girl”, Carrie in Carrie) she’s a figure both unappealing and somehow appealing. Sympathetic, certainly. Yet weird. And gross. And lonely. And with a fetish for blood, cannibalism and body parts – probably not traits you’d want in someone working at your local veterinary clinic, but that’s what she does. And in her spare time, she tries desperately, sweetly, and hopelessly, to find herself some kind of companion, trying out Anna Faris, Jeremy Sisto and James Duval with little success (May and the aforementioned Ida Teeter would probably have been compatible, funnily enough). It’s all building to a tragic conclusion, of course, but this is tragedy as Aristotle understood it, inevitable, inexorable, and arousing “pity and fear”. Key to this is Angela Bettis’ understated, unrestrained, fascinatingly multifaceted performance in the title rôle. In truth, there’s a lot about May that just works: the smart, feminist script, which doesn’t try to tell you how smart or feminist it is; strong supporting performances across the board; the direction; the cinematography; the killer soundtrack; the production design; even the lighting. But it’s Bettis that elevates it from a merely strong indie showing, to the first great film from one of the great horror filmmakers of the 21st century.
Audio and visuals: 3 stars
May falls into a bit of a valley as far as “remastered for Blu-Ray”: not old enough that it really gains a lot from the transfer; not modern enough, or expensive enough, to look eye-popping in high def. But it’s always been a good-looking, good-sounding film nonetheless, McKee and sound man Eric Jolley making the absolute most out of their limited resources.
Presentation: 5 stars
May comes in a beautiful box, with great new art by Bella Grace, and includes an assortment of art cards and a book of essays on the film.
Extras: 5 stars
May comes with three commentaries, all of them pleasantly relaxed. Academic Alexandra Heller-Nicholas avoids the dryness usually attendant with commentaries by film scholars; this is not to say that her commentary isn’t sharp, well-reasoned, or impressive in its breadth and depth, because it’s all those things in abundance. But it’s also witty and charmingly unrehearsed; furthermore, it displays something I don’t think I’ve ever heard on any audio commentary: vulnerability. Emotional nakedness. Heller-Nicholas comes off less like an academic delivering a lecture, more like a very clever friend sitting next to you on the couch. The “couch” theme is even more pronounced in the second commentary, which features McKee, cinematographer Steve Yedlin, editor Chris Sivertson, and actors Angela Bettis (May), Nichole Hiltz (Ambrosia) and Bret Roberts (“Distraught Man in the Veterinarian Office”, no joke). Bettis and McKee dominate the conversation here, and both are in fine, funny, gently self-deprecating mood. If you want to learn a lot about the craft, like a David Fincher commentary, you’re in the wrong place. This is not film as tortured expression, this is film as play. It’s very much film as play in the third commentary, in which we meet “Benji”, allegedly the film’s caterer (spoilers: it’s just a silly voice), along with McKee (again!) and another editor: Rian Johnson, who apparently made a film called Star Wars, which you may have heard of. Aside from the commentaries, there’s an extensive set of interviews: actor Jeremy Sisto (Adam) in “Perfect Hands” lets us know that he can rarely sit through horror films, The Sixth Sense being the major exception; conversely, in “Blankety Blank” actor James Duval gushes about his love of Universal horror, science fiction and punk rock. “How to Execute a Murder” features cinematographer Steve Yedlin in a thoughtful mood as he discusses his career, the young Rian Johnson, and the films that influenced him in childhood. Speak of the devil: the next interview, “Peeling Back the Layers”, is with Johnson himself; Johnson may be a controversial filmmaker, but he undeniably knows and understands film, and so it’s a joy to see him give a thoughtful analysis of May. “Jack and Jill” and “In the Cut” feature, respectively, editors Chris Sivertson and Kevin Ford, both of whom cover reasonably similar ground: how they met Lucky, how they got involved in his circle of filmmaking buddies, and their experiences on May. “Blood, Gore and Rock ‘n’ Roll” features another member of Lucky McKee’s film school friendship circle, his ex-bandmate and the film’s composer, Jaye Barnes Luckett, who reveals that, in composing May‘s score, she envisioned something that would be equal parts “Bernard Herrmann and Nine Inch Nails, mixed with a little Nirvana”. In “From Frankenstein to May”, scholar Miranda Corcoran draws a number of parallels between the two texts, discussing feminism, queer readings, the origins of science and science fiction, and more. It’s dense with ideas, if a little dry. Finally, there’s “Bits and Pieces: On the Set of May”, which is more a collage of people horsing about in between shooting than a documentary.
Overall: 5 stars
Lucky McKee’s masterpiece still is, and probably always will be, The Woman. But May is one of the most delightful, and scrappy, indie horrors of the 21st century, and this package is something that anyone with any interest in horror, indie filmmaking, or feminism, owes it to themself to own.