May

MOVIE #1,187 • 🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿 • 10.11.23 50 MOVIES IN 32 DAYS! Another one that’s somewhat regretfully been labeled a “cult classic.” This is a minor pet peeve for me, fwiw: that the bar is far too low for that moniker. I think this movie’s fine and I can sort of see how a select demo (sad teens) would latch on to its overwhelming and depressing message of loneliness. What we learn from the titular May is that there’s a certain type of outcast who will never assimilate in the cold, cruel world. Might as well become a serial killer and stitch a new ‘friend’ out of the body parts of your victims. I did appreciate how this is also a total fake-out for what at first appears to be a ‘creepy doll’ movie.

Angela Bettis — who 20 years later would star in a movie famously panned by yours truly — plays May, a social outcast and vet tech, and her description of a dog’s sutures bursting open might be grosser than anything in the Terrifier films…


This is an extremely 2002 cast (Jeremy Sisto and Anna Faris co-star) but it's not trapped by all the bad staples of that era, especially the editing (in fact, James Gunn co-edited this, interestingly enough). I also think the screenplay by dude with great name + totally spotty looking filmography, Lucky McKee, is really solid for the most part. There’s a lot of thematic resonance around the concept/motifs of eyes and seeing (May deals with a lifelong lazy eye issue and ends up volunteering at a daycare for the blind).

When we finally get to the real “horror” of this horror movie, and May makes “Amy” (an anagram from a broken ashtray made by one of the blind kids) out of the body parts of five dead people (and a cat!), it's obviously sick and gross but still maintains a tinge of sadness given her plight and rough life. She ultimately breaks down when she realizes that her new friend can't see her. She can never have that which she's only ever desired: to be seen. The message is both timeless and prescient. She stabs out her lazy eye and gives it to her friend.

The movie ends with Amy coming alive and stroking May's face. She smiles. The difference between feeling and seeing, comfort and feeling seen. There’s things/ideas that I really loved about this movie, but they almost seem to exist outside of the actual movie, which I didn’t love watching.

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CHRONOLOGICALLY
⫷ MOVIE #1,186 - (YOU ARE HERE) - MOVIE #1,188 ⫸

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May is a 2002 American psychological horror slasher film written and directed by Lucky McKee in his directorial debut. Starring Angela Bettis, Jeremy Sisto, Anna Faris, and James Duval, the film follows a lonely young woman (Bettis) traumatized by a difficult childhood, and her increasingly desperate attempts to connect with the people around her. May was unsuccessful at the box office, but it received favorable reviews from critics, and is now considered a cult classic. It was released on January 13, 2002.