Monday, July 2, 2012


¡Qué horror! 2012
Candidate # 18


THE WOMAN
(January 2011)

“God only knows where she’s been living, Peg. In the woods. In caves. We’re gonna help her…”

Premiering at Sundance 2011 on the same day as fellow ¡Qué Horror! 2012 candidate, Red State, and causing quite the controversial stir, Lucky McKee’s The Woman is ostensibly a sequel to Andrew van den Houten’s Offspring (both films adapted from the works of Jack Ketchum).
Now, honestly, I wasn’t overly fond of Offspring, so I really only gravitated to The Woman on the strength of McKee’s name, and after having seen it, I have this to say for starters: if someone were to have told me three years ago that Offspring would beget a sequel, I wouldn’t have pictured it to be the feral and ferocious cinematic experience that is McKee’s The Woman.

Truth be told, you really don’t need to have seen Offspring to appreciate what McKee and company have done with The Woman. All you really have to know is, a wild woman (Pollyanna McIntosh, reprising her role as “The Woman”) is living in the woods.
It isn’t long after The Woman starts though, that she’s no longer running loose in the woods. Then, of course, the fit hits the shan, and off we go.
McKee (working together with his May star, Angela Bettis, for the fifth time, if my count is right) shows us just how primal and vicious the female of the species can be, particularly when cornered by the more idiotic and presumptuous members of the opposite sex.
This is strong and potent stuff, not for the easily offended.
You have been warned…

“We’re gonna train her, Brian. Civilize her. Free her from herself, from her baser instincts.”


(The Woman OS courtesy of bloody-disgusting.com; UK quad courtesy of impawards.com.)

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