May

Rating:
Summary: Absolutely Awesome
Review: this movie deserves more recognition. that is all that is needed to be said about this film.

Rating:
Summary: The Most Psychological Thriller Ever!!!
Review: This movie is one of the most scariest films i've ever seen,and it's not even scary.The film follows May (Angela Bettis) a loner,and freak with a lazy eye.She recieves a doll as a little girl which becomes her best friend.A few years later she has learned to hid her lazy eye with contacts or glasses.One day she sees a man next to a car and falls in love with him...and his hands.With a lesbian co-worker in her midst and a couple of blind children,Mays life falls apart after she almost had it perfect.At the end of the films she "fixes" her eye...which is the goriest part in the movie,the movie which I liked alot of people might not like.The movie is more worth of 3 Stars and a C-,but I give it 5 and an B- anyway.

Rating:
Summary: I need more Parts.....
Review: May is not normal. At first, you think there is a possibility that she could be misunderstood, but May is definitely not normal. She gives a whole new meaning to the word 'Freak'.

May grows up being different, wearing an eye patch because of a lazy eye. Mommy and Daddy give her a doll to be her friend, a doll that is one of those 'look but don't touch' dolls. If you can't meet friends, then make one.

May matures, and we pick up with her as she is working for a Veterinarian as his assistant. She sees a young man who inspires her to get contact lenses and become a bit more flirtatious, after falling in love with his hands. His beautiful hands.

May can always see the best in people, though they don't seem to see her very well at all. Betrayed by the two people who claimed to like her and her odd ways, May finally decides Mommy was right. It's time to make a new friend. Someone who will understand her.

Not a blatant blood-splatter film but nonetheless a titillating journey through the sicker side of need. There are definitely some good 'Parts' in this movie; in particular the dead kitty and the Lysol spray (he-he), plus pretty decent performances by Angela Bettis and Anna Faris (Scary Movie I & II). Creepy and a bit disturbing, this is a great movie for a first time date with that little oddball you've been meaning to ask out on a date. Enjoy!

Rating:
Summary: Doll Parts...
Review: OK, warning, do not, as I did, put this movie into the DVD player and walk out of the room. My DVD player has a mind of its own, and will, at times, want to play a movie before you're damned good and ready. ; as was the case here. Another warning, do not, as said above, and have, as I did, a 2 year old in the room. Now, I'm not saying that he's traumatized for life. However, the opening of the movie should give you a bit of taste of things to come. Fortunately, I waited until well after my son's bedtime to watch the film.

At times movies arrive in the mail via NetFlix and I forget why I rented them. As was the case with MAY. Nevertheless, after watching the movie I was not sorry for it.

I consider the inspiration to seek out and watch the film was probably a review I read and don't remember reading in Fangoria magazine.

Other movies have attempted to show a person descend into madness. It starts when you're very young and you digress. May was a child with a lazy eye that was coddled by her mother and treated as an outsider, so when we see her years later, she's a beautiful young woman, with a stigmatism that will make one think she's looking at you and someone across the road, much like a chameleon. Yet, May's had a friend her entire life to be with her on her downward spiral. The "creepy" doll her mother gave to her, "but not to touch," that dwells within a glass box and sees the world through unblinking eyes and while May pines over the doll, she's continuously in search for someone to share a life with. That life she finds in obsession in "parts." The song that comes to mind is by Hole, 'Doll Parts,' and once you begin seeing the unraveling of the film, you'll understand. A seamstress and veterinary assistant, May is truly one of a kind and is quirky and charming in a "Carrie" kind of way. Moreover, by unraveling, it doesn't just mean the film, but the person we're living through.

Lucky McKee is the director and writer of the film and if there's one thing to say about writer/directors, they know what they want you to see when it comes to writing the piece. As a writer myself, I know what goes through my head in setting up scenes. When it comes to writer/directors, they capture the intensity of the scene exactly as it was put to paper. Although the directing was satisfactory, what brought the film out was the acting by Angela Bettis, as May and the character actors that surrounded her. Some faces may seem familiar to people that recognize actors for their body of work and not the pay they bring home.

I had no idea the movie would turn in the direction it did and at the end, you completely understand her pain from the beginning. Troubled? Yes. Dangerous? Absolutely! I think I would find 'May' an irresistible girl if I met her on the street or laundry mat as the case may be, and fall in love. However, it would be foolish, costly, and still, I'd understand as I was wheeled down the sidewalk, looking at the dark inside of an ice chest that this girl was special.

For those who watch a movie for stories this is for you. Those of you that have a ten-minute attentions span-what was I saying? This is not for you! Dark, sometimes touching and funny, those of us that truly get inspiration when it comes to good films, this is for you.

Not for the weak minded, or weak stomach.

Rating:
Summary: Sufficiently original
Review: Thanks to the wonders of the Amazon recommendation list, this hidden gem appeared after I viewed some recent horror flicks. Needless to say, having not heard of it before, I made the decision to rent a copy from my local video store before making any determinations on it. I'm glad I did.
The movie centers around May, a loner with a lazy eye. Thinking back on it, this may be a reference to Edgar Allen Poe, but who knows. Growing up outside the mainstream, May develops into an introvert who works at an animal hospital and sews. Oh yeah, she also happens to keep a doll as her "best friend".
Shy as she is, May still manages to have a couple people populate her social life. Adam is a man admired from afar, then caressed in a coffee shop, and who opens May up to the world of interpersonal relationships. Polly is a co-worker who also happens to enjoy masochism and other women. Both of them propel May to some life changing revelations and, after May has stitched things together in the end, lead her to sob out "All I want...is see me."
This movie is great for people who enjoy both thrilling diamonds in the rough, and a little bit of twist with our strange. Rent it or buy it, just watch it, you'll be glad you did.

Rating:
Summary: Y'all thought this was a horror movie?
Review: May (Lucky McKee, 2002)

I can't remember how many times I heard Ghost World referred to as the rebirth of the hip, smart teen comedy. Then I saw it, and was left utterly cold. The only difference between Ghost World and Clueless was that Alicia Silverstone has gotten too old to play Thora Birch's role.

So then I saw May, and realized that everyone had just seen both movies on the same day and misattributed all the accolades. May is intelligent, funny, and sharp as a scupel-err, scalpel.

Angela Bettis (Girl, Interrupted), who does the most remarkable impression of those Edward Gorey-drawn Victorian little pre-goth girls, stars in the title role. May is a lifelong misfit who fits in nowhere. After (we presume) the death of her parents, May is left on her own in the house in which she grew up, with a job at the local animal hospital, no life, and a best friend who's a really disturbing porcelain doll who May has never taken out of the case constructed for her long before May's birth. Then, through the magic of cinema, we are transported to the realm of Britcom 'Allo! 'Allo!-this somewhat plain, reclusive girl catches the eye of two Hollywood-gorgeous types, Adan (Jeremy "Julius Caesar" Sisto-who really does appear as Caesar, albeit in a Halloween costume, in this film) and Polly (Anna Faris of the Scary Movie franchise). May's naivete causes her to make a few bad choices in the courtship game, a few bad choices are made by others, and the stage is set for the film to become the tragedy (though always leavened with humor) it threatens to become from the first moments.

Despite being what it is (and by now it's not a spoiler to say it's a modern retelling of Frankenstein, since everyone else has mentioned it by now), the movie has some of the funniest one-liners to see the big screen in the past two or three decades. Look especially for a cameo for Nightstalker title character Bret Roberts, whose mini-breakdown may be the funniest big-screen scene since the last spoken line in Ocean's Eleven back in 1960.

Twisted, hysterical, and not for the weak of stomach. ****

Rating:
Summary: A Fine Little Horror Film
Review: In an era when the horror film has degenerated into unimaginative and redundant Freddy Krueger and Halloween flicks (versions 1-97), it is satisfying to find a creepy little gem like May. Angela Bettis is wonderful in the title role, creating the greatest female villain in a horror film since Sissy Spacek in Carrie. Rather than playing her as a caricature, Bettis brings her to life as a lonely, tormented individual suffering from mental illness, and the portrayal is both believable and poignant. We watch her personality deteriorate as the film progresses. May is quite attractive, in a delicate, waiflike way. She is also odd and creepy. It is easy to see how the Jeremy Sisto character would be simultaneously attracted to, and repulsed by her. She is like an exotic flower which turns out to be poisonous. The pace of the film is measured but never boring. May's outbursts of violence are brief, but nasty (she is a veterinary surgical assistant and favors sharp implements such as scalpels and scissors). The quirky, Alt-Rock soundtrack fits the story perfectly, and the film has a black humor about it, from start to finish.
To some of the negative reviews of this film, I would say: This is not meant to be High Art and was not submitted at Cannes. It's a horror movie! In conclusion, if you have the attention span of a circus monkey or believe that all horror movies should feature a guy in a hockey mask and have a number after the title, this is not the film for you. If you like an offbeat, intelligently made horror film that delves into the psychology of the character, then May is worth a look.

Rating:
Summary: Giddily wicked and wildly original.
Review: A masterful job on all counts. The creepiest and most enjoyable horror film in years. The tragedy is both sad and profound and the humor is as dark as it gets, but had me laughing out loud. The script is light years ahead of the horror pack for intelligence and daring, and the young cast deliver marvelous performances. A rare, sharp, bloody jewel of of movie.

Rating:
Summary: One of The More Engrossing Movies I¿ve Seen
Review: It's a blatant pleasure to be absorbed into "one of those movies." Unfounded by a trace of hype nor near the Hollywood treatment, it's a wonder to see such movies come out nicely. Especially when they pull the audiences into a disquieting twist. That's what the disturbingly droll movie, MAY, has done for me. In its first minutes, I instinctively knew this was going to be one of those rare films that will either be embraced in its artistry or regarded as total filth. Criticism of filth tossed aside, I have to declare that this has to be one of the more engrossing movies I've seen all this year.

As plastic body parts fell on the screen and May's childhood developed on screen, there were irrefutable clues that carefully hinted a later revelation for a powerful ending. Such scenes add up like the mutilation of a dog's leg, then a shot of one lusty pair of legs, May's sick infatuation to be stabbed with a toy knife, etc. All of it meshes together, leading to a manifestation of something surprising, and I graciously enjoyed every minute of it.

The plot takes on the teenage girl, May, who is cursed with one lazy eye. Because of it, she doesn't have much friends to begin with. On one of her early birthday's, her mother gives her a doll she made from scratch, and tells her "if you don't have a friend, make one." A line that will turn into morbid irony. Growing up, May is still a rather reticent girl working as a veteran's assistant. She has an off-putting fascination with flesh, pain, death, and other abnormalities that the general masses would deem as bizarre or immoral. Once May receives contact lenses which disguise her lazy eye as a normal one, she is ready to take on the challenge of her first date. Despite her inability and inexperience of having any friends at all.

Later in the movie, we learn she has an obsession towards human body parts. Each person who plays some sort of role in her life, she has a type of infatuation with a specific body part, such as a flawless neck or masculine hands. Though, May's strange persona finally catches up to her, in which the regular outdoor world will not accept as normal. She feels the iron fist of rejection from her boyfriend, her friend, and an unfortunate punk rocker. Thus, she is back in her lonesome life and whom does she turn to? Her doll Susie. Susie lost too. May snaps, she has had enough and takes the next gruesome step in the art of making friends. Those hands, that neck, those perfect legs, such body parts would make the perfect "friend."

MAY isn't a traditional horror film that will throw you off your seat or summon the jitters, but a horror flick in a sense of how deep May will go to find self-contentment. Even if it means killing those she know or immortalizing her dead cat in the freezer. All the appalling scenes create its own grotesque nature, and underneath it all the film does manage to keep the audience laughing. I couldn't help but chuckle when May sets her face in her crush's hand while he was crashed out on a table. Or when she took an anxious bite into her tuna sandwich after telling her boyfriend a gruesome story of a dog's guts sprawling on the concrete. But as the funny scenes lessen, inward came the disturbing ones like May sleeping with her dead cat, and spraying it with air freshener.

The director's method of creating May was splendid. I believe he has made use of his time and delved into her otherwise pitiful existence. There are some scenes I thought were a bit too wacky in its own self, but I could relate to where she took up smoking, because when you are underage and in the military, its hard to get a buzz, so the next legal substance could be cigarettes? Nah. Anyway, May's relationship with her doll, who is encased in a glass and wood, is told precisely as it should be. She abandons Susie after she is befriended by real people. May begins to dislike Susie and smashes a fist on glass casing. Consequently, the glass makes crunching noises which haunt May. It is by these noises, the audience knows that she has lost the balance of reality.

I can see why May is regarded as disturbing, like when the blind children are crawling on the floor with shards of glass scattered all over. I cringed and winced as the eerie music played and the children moaned. The movie deserves all of its rights. Especially the mightily executed ending. I didn't see that coming when she placed her final piece to her "creation," and screamed "LOOK AT ME!" The morale of movie is right on and is an absolute piece of Drama. Just watching May limp over her "creation," crying helplessly, unraveled how troubled our world is. And if a movie forces you to relate, wince, and reflect, then it truly is a movie worth seeing.

Rating:
Summary: Truly, madly, deeply disturbing.
Review: "May" is one of the more disturbing horror films that I've seen lately. Starring Angela Bettis (Girl Interrupted, Bless the Child), ..it starts off like a coming of age movie and slowly but surely turns into a nightmare-ish horror film. It's about a young girl that had a disturbing childhood. She grows up and brings the insanity with her. A doll that was givin' to her by her mother is her only friend. That is until she befriends a young female co-worker and an attractive young man who she becomes obsessive over. Later as she begins to see the flaws in her new friends she decides to do the un-thinkable. Saying much more will give you too much information so I must not go into the story/plot any further. Fans of horror will find "May" a worthy DVD despite that it lacks any quality extras.