Plot-summary-wise, this movie could have been a total disaster, but the director and cast perfectly nail the tone, a comically heightened satire built on increasingly horrific acts. It’s a sequel to one of those after-dark-to-die-for flicks, Offspring, but this must not be too important since most of the reviews don’t mention it.
A nice family scene:
Parents Chris and Belle have two teens (daddy’s boy, goth girl) and young Darlin’. While out hunting, Chris discovers a feral woman (Pollyanna McIntosh, who looked very different in Let Us Prey), captures her and chains her into his shed, telling the family that they need to civilize her. “We can not have people running around the woods thinking they’re animals.” This is already an alarming development, as Chris (Sean Bridgers, villain of Room, typecast as a dude who locks women in sheds) goes from kinda-smarmy to kinda-evil, but he’s gradually revealed to be much more evil than suspected. After he incapacitates his wife (Angela Bettis, May herself) and feeds one of daughter Peggy’s teachers to the dogs, Peggy releases The Woman to wreak vengeful havoc.
Mom stands up to Dad for the last time:
The family expresses concern a few times for the “dogs,” one of which is late-revealed to be another hostage woman, mutilated and kept like an animal. Fantastic, table-turning ending as The Woman wanders back towards the woods with the dog-woman and the youngest daughter, and Peggy, with all the men and grown-ups dead, opting to follow along.
I also dug the rock & roll soundtrack. The last Lucky McKee work I saw was his Masters of Horror episode Sick Girl, also starring Bettis. Back then I wrote “fun flick, not bad at all,” which was mighty high praise for the MoH series. Since then I’d forgotten that Sick Girl was about lesbian entomologists – an influence on The Duke of Burgundy?
