My review of May

I watched this one because I heard that this one was decent and the consensus said that it was an "above average slasher film." I must disagree with the critics on this one. I didn't find too much in the film to like. I will say that I wanted to like it. I really really did.

Acting/characters: Pretty par for the course here. A girl is misunderstood at childhood and thus she slowly turns into a sociopath. She starts out saneish and just gets more and more nuts from there. Usually, the performance of that character is the best one in the film. well, here I suppose it was too but that isn't praising Bettis (who played the titular character). She didn't do too much better than the rest of them. It's not that the actors didn't seem to be trying to do well, they just...didn't. The characters were pretty flat to me. May was the only one who had any kind of depth to her, but that's because she's the only one we have to care about so the directors decided to spend all character development time on her. The rest were merely people for her to react and interact to/with. It could have been done better. 5/10

Plot: The critic's consensus calls it a slasher film but it really isn't one until the last 10 minutes or so and even then, it really wouldn't qualify. This film is more of a psychological thriller than a slasher. It felt to me that the entire film was merely a build-up to the last 10 minutes...It was more of a "we're going to show you the reasons of why she acts like this" as opposed to "here is a story that we'd like to show you." The plot before the gory stuff is merely a means to the end of showing you the last bit. it isn't a movie really. I felt that it was more of a 90 minute intro to the 10 minutes that the director was really going for. It was entertaining enough I suppose but I would have liked for it to have been a little tighter. 5/10

Screenplay: Meh. mediocre at best. it tried at times to be deep particularly when May would have little revelations about friendships. but it just fell flat overall. it wasn't the worst thing I have come across but I would have liked the script to have been better. I really didn't care what the characters were saying in the least bit. Since I knew generally how the movie was going to end, I got the feeling (as I mentioned above) that the preceding 90 minutes was merely a means to get to the end. Well, I lost interest way before then. WAAAAAYYYYYy before the end. And I think the script is largely to blame here for that. If they don't have anything interesting to say then why bother really? 4/10

Likableness: It started out interesting and I almost started caring about the titular character herself...but I lost interest too fast for me to actually in good faith recommend this one. It had its moments where it was interesting but it was overall a bland and boring film. The performance by the female lead was all that the film had going for it and even that wasn't amazing enough to keep my interest the whole time. See it if you think it looks good enough. It'll be hard to find but see it if you want. It was mediocre at best and flat out boring at worst. 4/10

Final Score: 18/40 45% (M)
Tomatometer rating: 68%
Tomatometer rating if my review was added: 67%


TRIVIA TIME: 1. Originally the film opened with a lengthy introduction to May as a child. But when the film appeared to be taking too long to get to its point, most of those scenes were cut. The opening with the adult May, specifically the first scene with her and her doll, were shot quickly and only to make the point that May was lonely as quickly as possible.

2. The teenage girl who asks May "got any cold ones in there" is dressed up as a zombie cheerleader in the exact same costume and makeup from Lucky McKee's very first movie, All Cheerleaders Must Die