Jack Ketchum writes books about violence in modern society, with some of his work being criticized as being exploitative. Several films (The Girl Next Door, Offspring) have been made based on his writings with varying success. The Woman, co written and directed by Lucky McKee (May), is a sequel to Offspring, and has garnered controversy for being misogynistic. A lot of crazy things have been said about this movie but how much of it is true?

The Cleek family is a peculiar one. The head of the household, Chris (played by Sean Bridgers), is a sexist, manipulative son of a bitch, whom you can’t help but like due to Bridgers’ captivatingly smug portrayal of an otherwise repugnant character. Then we have the complacent wife, Belle (played by Lucky‘s regular female lead, Angela Bettis, who was in his Masters of Horror episode "Sick Girl"), and three kids: Peggy, Brian and little Darlin’. The situation at home is awkward and tense, to say the least, but things really move into WTF mode when Chris nets a feral woman (played by Pollyanna McIntosh in a ferociously brilliant performance) in the woods one day and decides to bring her home and keep her captive in the cellar. But wait(!) THE MADNESS DOESN’T STOP THERE. He introduces the family to his prized catch, with the reasoning behind all this being he wants everyone to lend a hand in civilizing her. Your probably thinking this sounds preposterous and terribly wrong! But the captive woman has already demonstrated her appreciation to Chris in an earlier scene where she bit off his finger and chomped on it when he got too close. So maybe she’s not thrilled at the prospect, but while Chris is in charge, she has no choice but to like it. This is going to be a Cleek family project.

You may be wondering what the family is thinking. It’s established early on that Chris wields incredible control over them. Although fucked up things happen you either keep your mouth shut and disassociate, much like the wife and teen daughter Peggy, or slowly grow into accepting obvious wrong for right, as we see in the case of the adolescent son, Brian. The feral woman is basically fed, washed, and fucked with even less consideration than what you’d give an animal. The family participates on the first two tasks, but the fornication is reserved solely for Chris. Aware of everything his father is doing, Brian follows his example one afternoon and sexually tortures the captive woman. His mother finds out and confronts him in front of his father. At the same time Peggy’s teacher from school knocks on the door. She has been worried about the teenager and thinks she may be pregnant. Without giving key points away I want to say that the shit hits the fan in this thoroughly engaging third act where characters reach their breaking point and blood splatters freely. All hell literally breaks loose!

Lucky McKee gives horror fans exactly what we want. He makes this horrendous affair extraordinarily fun. I don’t agree with those that found the film misogynistic. If you pay attention, everything is taken with a grain of salt. I particularly liked the clever use of music in key scenes to evoke a mood. Pollyanna McIntosh gives so much of herself in this fascinating performance. I loved everything about this film!

- Jorge Antonio Lopez