The Woman

Horror is the only film genre that actively tries to make you uncomfortable.  So, the idea that any dimwit with a half-finished script and a couple gallons of fake blood can pull it off is not only a misconception, but an insult to those who take the genre seriously.  By way of example, Lucky McKee’s The Woman (2011) is a macabre social commentary on misogyny, motherhood and teen angst drenched in copious amount of gore.  While its predecessor, Offspring (2009), is just…filled with copious amounts of gore.  The two drastically different approaches to horror, however, make for a fascinating double feature.  And one of those rare cases in which watching the sequel first is the preferrable viewing experience.

 

Stumbling upon a feral woman alone in the wilderness, Chris Cleek makes the odd decision to chain her up in his shed and train her in the ways of civilization.  He also brings his family into the mix, involving them in the cleaning, feeding and dressing of his pet project.  Of course, Chris also uses her for his own manly “needs,” a dirty secret that doesn’t go unnoticed by his son, who is soon following in dad’s footsteps.  But when the women of the family finally band together, including the latest member, there’s hell to pay.

 

The Woman certainly isn’t subtle, but its damn smart and expertly performed.  McKee invests the film with the same suburban decay as David Lynch’s Blue Velvet but grounds it in all the visceral realities of abuse, assault and emotional trauma.  The situation itself might be an exaggeration, but it’s a recognizable one.  The explosion of violence in the final act negates a lot of the hard work put into the first two, but still proves horror can have an agenda beyond shock tactics and gross out gags.  

 

Produced three years earlier and based on material by horror author Jack Ketchum, Offspring actually laid the groundwork for McKee’s film by introducing a family of inbred cannibals wandering the forests of Maine.  Directed by Andrew van den Houten and starring genre veteran Art Hindle, the story wastes no time setting one family against another as the primitives capture, kidnap and torture unsuspecting vacationers.  It’s an obvious riff on Wes Craven’s The Hills Have Eyes (with a little Last House thrown in for good measure) that doesn’t aspire to do much more than shock and disgust. There’s plenty of room for that in the horror genre too, but it just doesn’t hold a candle to McKee’s superior sequel.

 

The only way to get both films is as a two-movie limited edition 4K Ultra HD set; Arrow also has a stand-alone Blu-ray that includes just The Woman if one is so inclined.  The new 4K restorations are director-approved and include a wealth of supplementary material, including multiple commentary tracks, deleted scenes, hours of behind-the-scenes footage, film panel discussions, more interviews and an illustrated collector’s booklet. 

 

 

 

 

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