Fifth Annual FMS Scarelicious October Movie Series #6: May

Wow.  It's Halloween and I've only managed to watch six scary (or, "scary," taking Warm Bodies into consideration) movies for the entire month.  That's a pretty lame FMSSOMS showing.  On the plus side, #6 (May, 2002) is a pretty good little indie horror flick.

Poor May is such a weirdo.  Shunned by her classmates as a child because she was shy and had an eye patch to correct her lazy eye, little May's only friend was a creeptastic homemade doll that her mother made - and who lives in a glass case because she's too precious to be touched.  (May's mother's motto: "If you don't have any friends, make one!")  Grown-up May (Angela Bettis) is still weird.  She's got her own apartment - filled with dolls she's made and her own homemade clothes - and a good job - as a veterinary assistant where her facility with needle and thread and a high tolerance for blood and guts comes in handy.  But she's still shy and hopelessly awkward, and talks to creepy doll Suzy because she's so lonely.  When Polly, the hot party girl receptionist at work (Anna Faris), starts making friendly overtures to her, May uses the interaction to build enough confidence to approach Adam the carwash boy (Jeremy Sisto) she's crushing on.  It all works out at first and she is thrilled to have these new friends.  But she's just so weird and creepy, and she doesn't have any social skills at all.  She finally freaks Adam out just too much and he dumps her; turning to Polly, she doesn't understand when Polly blows her off for a booty call.  Abandoned and alone again, May remembers her mother's motto and that's when the blood starts flowing.

For probably two-thirds of this 90 minute movie, May is more of a darkly funny psychothriller: you know that something is wrong with May but you hope that she'll be able to pull herself together.  It seems like she might be able to get herself to be normal enough, if not completely normal.  I was rooting for her at first, this sad, lonely weird girl.  But May is too weird to really identify with and once the killing starts, I stopped rooting for her.  Unlike Carrie White, with whom the audience sympathizes even as she takes her vengeance, May is just too creepy and damaged to be relatable. Still, the performances are good and the effects are, well, effective even if the "blood" is a little thin.  May is an unexpected dark little treat of a movie, a fine way to wrap up the month.