“The Woman” is a horror film with family drama spread thickly over from a deep recess of morbidity.
It’s a disconcerting film about male domination, misogyny and feminism. It’s obviously not a family movie, but like many great dramas its perplexities and issues are derived from family.
Chris Cleek (Sean Bridgers) is a prosperous lawyer who flirts with his secretary, has oil contracts and governs his family with militancy. He commands respect and loyalty and as long as his wife and children obey him, he will not stretch from his throne to punish.
Chris’s adolescent son, Brian (Zach Rand), pays careful attention and replicates his father’s ruthful machismo.
Our introduction to Brian is done early in the opening, when he sits idly by while a group of boys are physically bullying a girl. Brian, instead of intervening, watches with narrowed eyes and malignancy.
Later when a fellow female schoolmate beats Brian at basketball he plants gum in her hairbrush for revenge.
Chris’s daughter Peggy (Lauren Ashley Carter) and wife Belle (Angela Bettis) live in perpetuated fear of Chris. The youngest sister, Darlin’ (Shyla Molhusen), is a charming toddler whose lack of age saves her from the cruelty of her father.
The film’s focal point is of a feral woman (Pollyanna McIntosh) who hunts wild animals in the woods outside of the family’s home. Chris hunts these same woods frequently and one day, while prowling the forest he notices the feral woman bathing in a river.
The music suggests sultry lust for the bloodied mouth, mud-caked and half-naked wild woman. Chris decides to catch her and chain her to the wall of his family’s basement and recruits his family in his escapade of attempted “rehabilitation” of the “savage” woman.
Chris quickly experiences his new house guest’s cannibalism, as she tears his finger from his hand when Chris hovers too close to her mouth. She swallows the finger whole, bone included.
The film is traditionally like most horror movies because it holds no bars when the gore takes place. It repulses in every way horror movies should.
The film’s controversy rides on issues of rape and torture. It’s not a film for everyone, known already from those who walked out on the movie at the Sundance Film Festival showing.
Those who can make it through to the end may find a fascinating tale of feminism told uniquely through a lens of horror. The film’s finale may leave some feeling split over the movie’s meaning but the purpose of the film is not to leave you unscathed, its purpose is to make you uncomfortable.
The cast is wonderful. Bettis is docile for much of the film but exudes a growing rage hidden under her “calm.”
Rand as Brian does well to make the viewer loath him because he’s a sickened adolescent of malicious tendencies.
Carter plays well as Peggy, the terrified daughter.
Bridgers is a remarkable actor who exudes a diffident masculinity. Finally, model turned actress Pollyanna McIntosh is absolutely frightening as the feral woman. She’s human but her behavior is alien to everything else we know.
She hisses more than she speaks but her glares at each family member tells a deeper story of the woman than talk. The woman reads deep into the understanding of the soul of each family member, despite her disconnection with the modern world.
Director Lucky McKee has proven himself to be a cult favorite in horror. He shows through in this film as an artful master of drama sleuthed over with horror.
He’s dealt often with women protagonists and does well in “The Woman.”
McKee crafted a persona in the feral woman that is foreign to us. Nothing will break this woman’s will regardless of what atrocities the men in the movie bring her way.