Five-Legged Iguana

¡QUÉ HORROR! 2012
Candidate # 14

DOROTHY MILLS
(May 2008)


It’s frustrating that the marketing people couldn’t think of a better tagline for Agnès Merlet’s Dorothy Mills than “Evil Chose Her.”
I’m not sure what that “better tagline” might be, but I’m fairly certain there’s one out there that would better represent what the film is really about.
This sort of misleading tagline could either, a) drive off a certain section of the potential audience who might otherwise have enjoyed this kind of film, because they thought, quite mistakenly, that it was that kind of film; or, b) leave a certain section of the actual audience dissatisfied because they went into the movie thinking, quite mistakenly, that it was the kind of film the tagline was suggesting.
Suffice it to say that Dorothy Mills isn’t the sort of horror movie you may think you’re getting with a tagline like “Evil Chose Her.” (I’m not even sure the Exorcist blurb from Variety makes things any better…)

Ultimately, Dorothy Mills is a film about guilt and remorse, both personal and communal, and the terrible weight that accompanies its burden, with excellent central performances by Carice van Houten (seen more recently in Christopher Smith’s Black Death and in the upcoming second season of HBO’s Game of Thrones) and Jenn Murray (who subsequently appeared as Natalie in The Fades).

(Dorothy Mills DVD cover art courtesy of anyclip.com.)