In the recent hit mystery series Poker Face, one episode stands out because of its shocking climax. At the end of “Time of the Monkey,” the show’s hero Charlie (Natasha Lyonne) fights two old ladies (Judith Light and S. Epatha Merkerson), who turn out to be left-leaning domestic terrorists. The fight is comic and macabre, a kind of uneasy tension where we are unsure whether we should be entertained or horrified. That tension is precisely where the episode’s director, Lucky McKee, prefers to operate.
Over the course of more than 20 years, McKee has made horror films that attract devoted fans, and yet his unconventional approach to morality and good taste practically assure he will never enter the genre’s mainstream. His closest endeavor was 2002’s May, a modern Frankenstein tale with a bizarre, complex, erotic lead performance by Angela Bettis. No one would call the film a proto example of “elevated horror,” and yet there is a twisted empathy to it that makes it stand alone. By following his premise to its inevitable conclusion, McKee’s film is a minor masterpiece.
Before the action starts, we see May as a young girl. Awkward and shy, she has few friends due to a lazy eye and develops an imaginary friendship with a doll, Suzie. Now unlike Chuckie or other horror movie dolls, Suzie is truly disturbing, a kind of phantom in suspended animation who never leaves her glass case (more on that later). Most kids grow out of their imaginary friends, except as a young woman (now played by Bettis), May’s social isolation has become part of her personality. But because she happens to be conventionally attractive, she develops two relationships that excite her beyond reason. Adam (Jeremy Sisto) likes her because “[he] likes weird,” while May’s colleague Polly (Anna Faris) is a lesbian who looks for new kinks wherever she can.
Part of the charm, and eventual tension, is born out of May’s stunted sexuality. She “dates” Adam and Polly, and while there is some physical affection with both, she lacks the wherewithal to develop a normal, reciprocated relationship. If McKee starts his film as an offbeat romantic comedy, it is around here where it turns into more of a drama (he bides his time for horror). Bettis’ performance is crucial to the effect: her performance is uncompromising, and yet she elicits sympathy because we understand her situation better than she does. Since neither relationship works out, May decides to take an early alternative to her loneliness more literally than intended. From the “best” parts of everyone she knows, she decides to “make” a friend of her own.
It is here where McKee follows in the tradition of James Whale’s Frankenstein. May is both the scientist and the monster, a woman who kills and dismembers in her singular pursuit to create someone, finally, who will always be there and not disappoint her. McKee does not dwell on horror like his torture porn contemporaries, which grew in popularity shortly after the 2002 release. He prefers to cut away, letting the audience’s imagination do the work for him, which ultimately proves to be the much more intense technique. In her desperation, for example, May looks for companionship in blind children (she figures she can make inroads because they cannot see her). May brings along Suzie, who falls out of her case, meaning McKee forces us to watch blind children crawl over broken glass. A horrifying image to be sure, but a justified one because of the emotional and plot logic beforehand is implacable.
All May’s fits and starts, her failed attempts to move beyond her sad little life, culminate in the film’s final minutes. Through a bit of foreshadowing, we are expecting a shot of May screaming in front of a mirror, her hands clutching her face. The circumstances of her injury are shocking in their violence, and moving in what they imply. At long last, through a mix of personality flaws and profound misunderstandings, May finally has someone who can see her, who can give her the kind of tenderness she has needed all along. It never occurs to McKee to critique May, despite her crimes, because he is too curious and too sympathetic for that. None of us would ever turn to May’s final choices, killing in the name of friendship, but who hasn’t longed for a little touch on the shoulder, or a small gesture that means so much right when we need it most? McKee uses the confines of horror not to delight gore-fiends, but to unearth something uneasy and true, something universally understood and rarely acknowledged.
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