Some four years ago, I wrote a treatise on Lucky McKee's debut feature May---a film that made minor waves when it was unceremoniously dumped damn-near direct-to-dvd in 2003---that reflected my ambivalence to the picture. The review came and went without comment, much as the film did to me. I applauded the film's quirkiness and it's convincing stars Angela Bettis and Jeremy Sisto, guffawed at Anna Faris's over-the-top performance as a lipstick lesbian seductress, and pointed out my discomfort with what i percieved to be a rather jarring shift in tone from the film's first acts to it's blood-soaked finale; I slapped it with three stars and (what i think was) a well-written (if noncommittal) review, and went about my way.

In the years since, May has stayed with me. That jarring, painful opening shot has disturbed many a nightmare; the simultaneous revulsion and odd poignance of the final shot has done the same. And so, as my girlfriend and i work through a stack of dvds, educating ourselves on horror cinema in all of its delightful forms before culminating with a Halloween-night mini-horror-fest (a process that i'll attempt to document here, although no promises), i've found myself recalling May rather fondly. And when we nestled into the couch the other night for a little double-feature action (we coupled it with Pet Sematary, and found that both films feature dead cats), I found, to my delight, that May is actually a much better film than I initially gave it credit for.

**

May essentially treads the same ground as Stephen King's Carrie---and draws inevitable comparisons to Carrie White's story due in no small part to Angelas Bettis's portrayal of both titular women scorned (Bettis aptly took up Sissy Spacek's mantle in the 2002 Carrie remake, an adept performance in an unfortunate film). But the comparisons hold water; the most notable difference is that Carrie was the victim of the cruel cliques and politics of high school hierarchies, and May achieves her loneliness through her own alienation of those around her. Her biggest childhood trauma was the eyepatch she wore as a child, an accessory demanded by her mother so the other children wouldn't cruelly insult her lazy eye. The children, instead, chose to address that she looked like a pirate. Some kids just can't get a break.

Predictably, May grows up to be a maladjusted, socially inept adult, inexplicably snaring a position at a local animal hospital and a big, roomy apartment all to herself, despite her obvious psychological questionability. Now a twentysomthing in the process of having contact lenses prescribed to correct her lazy eye, May has her target---a rugged mechanic and amateur filmmaker named Adam (Jeremy Sisto)---in her, um, sights, while increasingly drawing the attentions of Polly (Anna Faris), a mock-seductive lesbian who holds a receptionist position in May's animal hospital (also: in a post-Borat world, i was amused to see Ken Davitian pop up in the thankless role of "Foreign Doctor"). Serving as her best friend and mentor throughout is her hand-me-down doll Suzy, bequeathed to her by her mother with the following nugget of wisdom:

"If you can't find a friend... make one."

**

This bit of philosophy brings May home. We're reminded of momma May's words when May expresses her dismay about the nature of people---and how only certain parts of them are perfect, while a further look at the individual reveals disheartening imperfections. This all builds up to May's inevitable conclusion---part Carrie, part Frankenstein---which was part of my initial trepidation about the movie. You see, it's no surprise that May goes where it goes---but really, the lion's share of the gore hits us in the film's final 20 minutes or so. And at that, it does go for broke; most scenes aren't gratuitous, but the gleeful foreboding in those last few moments lead to an act of self-mutilation that will have you cringing in anticipation of it. And I suppose, intitially, I found this tonal shift a little jarring---much of the beginning of May plays like an indie romcom featuring an exceptionally screwy heroine, and then suddenly the blood geysers start spraying---but, given the benefit of time and a rewatch, I think it's easy to find the transformation very sudden when you're not really internalizing the events of the film's first hour. May begins the movie with a screw loose---the madness burbles to the surface very, very slowly, as she progresses in confidence and then has said confidence torn down through a series of rejections. Her corrective vision takes great strides to fix much of what she got teased about as a child; the weirdness is still there, but she now feels able to approach, pretty enough to be loved. When this newfound self-esteem is burnt to the ground by back-to-back rejections by Adam and Polly, May's sanity-meter plunges lower than it was before. It's a regression. And then, May goes apeshiit.

Performance-wise, May features a surprisingly strong duo of performances at its core. Bettis, who i respected but initially chided for going too over-the-top, is fantastic in this. She carries the movie, really---witness how adorable and how terrifying she can be in the same scene. We identify with Bettis's May---she's the physical manifestation of what we all fear: not raving lunacy, but loneliness. May is lonely and friendless, and take a look at the way Bettis fetishizes little things, like the beat-up pack of cigarettes Adam gives her, or the way she literalizes the cannibal-porn of Adam's debut short feature, or the way she asks if a punk-y visitor (James Duval) is her best friend, now that he's stumbled onto an intimate secret of hers (namely, the dead cat in her freezer).

Sisto, meanwhile, maintains his relatively-solid reputation as a young supporting actor, entertaining even when a film like Wrong Turn coldly offs him early on. Of the performances, his Adam is the most realistic, intrigued by May's off-kilter, mousy cuteness, and by the fact that she's different---"I like weird," Adam deadpans to a distraught May early on, "a lot"---and he backs away when she takes this to heart, and eclipses his idea of weirdness (short films fetishizing cannibalism, Argento shrines) with her own (actual cannibalism, stalking, amateur dismemberment). And then there's Anna Faris, sometimes cloyingly over-the-top in her performance as the lesbian seductress, breathily cooing outdated lines, wide-eyed and doll-mouthed, herself seduced by May's weirdness. But the performance works in this movie, and it wouldn't in any other---it's too weird out-of-context.

May also functions quite ably as a black comedy. In fact, that's what the film presents itself as, before the blood begins to flow---it's very dark, and borderline disturbing, but it's severely funny nonetheless, containing many moments of uncomfortable snickering, and even a few belly laughs. "Oh, Lupe," May deadpans to a dead cat, "I miss petting your pretty fur," before lazily spraying the decomposing bundle of fur down with Lysol. The delivery is priceless. Even the scene where McKee has the brass ones to have a classroom full of blind children crawl over broken glass is surreal enough to make the liberated humorist guffaw at the sheer heinous lunacy of it all.

Yes, May is, definitively, a great horror flick. It builds up tantalizingly to a fantastic payoff---but, in sharp contrast to something like Larry Fessenden's the Last Winter, which is all buildup and no payoff, the payoff is exceptional, and the buildup still doesn't lose us. It's engaging, and creepy, and off-center, much like May herself. In the titular character, Angela Bettis has created a character that should, rightfully, be a horror icon; as it stands, May is one of the great cult horror movies of the past few years, and should be rightfully revered as such. Act like you heard, and feel free to give this movie a hand.

Well, on second thought, maybe a round of applause would suffice.