If you’re like me, every fall you gather your Halloween staples, the movies you absolutely must watch each season, and then you fill in your time with…well, everything else. I like to leave a little room to breathe in my viewing, just in case I stumble on something lurking on a streaming service that’s both unexpected and very exciting. And Lucky McKee‘s films certainly qualify as both unexpected and very exciting.
The Criterion Channel in particular is a great space to look for hidden gems like this, and they’ve done a fantastic job in recent years with their horror offerings. This year, just in time for Halloween, the channel launched a “2000s Horror” collection that features a lot of the usual suspects. You’ve got your Lake Mungo, your What Lies Beneath, your [REC], and more. Then there’s McKee’s stunning May.
Back before The Woods, before the 2013 version of All Cheerleaders Die, and before Old Man, McKee wrote and directed this 2002 film starring indie horror icon Angela Bettis in the title role. May is introduced as a shy veterinary assistant who’s never quite figured out how to relate to people in the real world, in part because her mother encouraged an unhealthy bond with a toy doll named Suzie, which May still owns.
But May is determined to get out there, and thinks she’s figured out a way to get through to someone when she connects with a local mechanic named Adam (Jeremy Sisto). It’s all going well, until May realizes she can’t trust Adam either, and falls back on her mother’s advice: “If you can’t find a friend, make one.”
Yes, this is McKee’s riff on Frankenstein, but instead of a megalomaniacal mad scientist, the protagonist is a woman with a little bit of (veterinary) medical training and a lot of uncertainty about the world. We are immediately sympathetic to May’s dilemma, even if we don’t sympathize with how far she takes things, and Bettis is wonderful in the role. As things get more and more unhinged, you keep rooting for May even as you’re sure she’s headed somewhere very dark, and you keep rooting for her right up until the film explodes in violence and body parts. It’s a film so impactful that Dread Central’s Matt Konopka credits it with “saving my life.”
While it’s not as famous as many of the other films in Criterion’s 2000s horror streaming collection, May still stands out as an essential of the era, particularly among indie films. The psychological depth of it, balanced with the sheer insanity of its violence, makes for an intoxicating combination, and you won’t want to miss a chance to stream it.
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