Movie Review: The Woman (2011)

Hey, bloggers! It's February again and in the horror world, that means it is Women in Horror Month! How apropos is it that the post I had scheduled to run today would actually fit into this? Freaky!

It's been a heck of a long wait for this one, bloggers! I had totally forgotten about The Woman until I saw it at the video store the other day (yeah, a video store! They still have those!). The Jack Ketchum book of the same name that this movie is based off of is a true masterpiece in horror, as it is one of the most horrific tales I have ever read - in a good and a bad way, if that is possible. Ketchum is known for his balls-out horror yarns that pull no punches, and this adaptation is no exception. (Psst, you can read my review of the book here.)

As established in the previous film Offspring (which by the way is an okay little horror flick despite its bad actors and low budget - I also reviewed that movie here - am I a shameless self-promoter or what?!) and the books, the titular character The Woman is the last of a clan of feral cannibals who once savaged the woods and caves where they lived. When lawyer Chris Cleek, a.k.a. The Worst Father/Husband/Man in the History of the World, stumbles upon The Woman while out hunting, he decides to capture her and keep her locked in his cellar in an attempt to teach her how to act more civilized. His brow-beaten wife and daughter and his douchebag son are brought along for the ride. 

The Woman is an interesting little concoction because the book and the screenplay were written simultaneously by author Jack Ketchum and director Lucky McKee. This is probably the reason why the book and film follow each other so closely, except for the fact that the movie sets a much different tone than the book. Ketchum's The Woman was a very dark, gory, and disturbing look not just into what Chris does to The Woman but into the dynamics of this intensely screwed up family. Though The Woman herself no doubt has a gross, cannibalistic, and brutal nature, that doesn't even seem to compare to the atrocities committed by Chris Cleek alone. His power over the people around him is so severe that you find yourself hating every character at one point or another because they can't take down this one little man.

Lucky McKee's film, as aforementioned, has a slightly different tone, and one that I was not too happy about at first. In all these scenes that were supposed to be nasty and dirty, there was this banging, upbeat soundtrack behind it that too often took away from the seriousness and utter horror of the situation (well, except the end, which ROCKED). When Chris first sees The Woman bathing in the creek, the music started up again and gave the scene that feeling like, "Holy shit! This is great! I'm watching a naked chick take a bath!" instead of what the scene was really about - Chris zeroing in on his prey, another woman he can possibly brutalize and control. I understand that the soundtrack was used to lighten the mood of a movie that would otherwise be so freaking depressing you would want to kill yourself after watching it, and for some scenes the soundtrack was used really well (loved the song playing when Peg is on the field at school), but to me this shouldn't be a "light" story at all.

The mood and tone of the film is also set by Sean Bridgers, who gives an exceptionally eerie portrayal of Chris. The way he plays this man who is so completely evil and callous makes the audience angry and upset. After punching his wife in the gut, he can casually tell his daughter (whom he's been raping) to go get a cloth for her, as if she just had a little headache or something. Bridgers's performance is probably best described as one that is actually quite funny - but the most uncomfortable funny you've ever experienced. You can laugh or chuckle at the calm and almost likable way he delivers his lines - if what he was talking about wasn't so damn awful! I was very impressed by this man's performance and the commitment he gave to a role that nobody in their right mind would ever want to play.

And I'll be damned if Pollyana McIntosh (what a name, eh?) doesn't deliver with every fiber of her being in her portrayal of The Woman. She gave a standout performance in the same role in Offspring, especially in one of those last moments where she starts eating a guy's brains out of his head, so it's great that the filmmakers had the foresight to keep her character around and center another story around The Woman. One thing I wish Lucky and crew would have done was to include subtitles for The Woman's strange made-up language. I mean, mostly you get the gist of what she's saying from her expression and gestures but especially in the part where she asks Peg for help from her father, calling her "Mother" because she is somehow able to sense that Peg is pregnant, I think it would have helped to have the subtitles to show early on the connection formed between Peg and The Woman.

There is a smidge of Ketchum's famous gore throughout the movie but you have to make it to the ending for the really good stuff. Chris has finally gone too far when he kills Peg's teacher by feeding her to the dogs, and Peg finally sets The Woman free from the cellar to have her fun. Oh, it's glorious. Face-biting, body-throwing, body-hacking, heart-ripping, and heart-eating - all the bad guys in the movie finally get their comeuppance and it is bloody fantastic, if you'll pardon the pun. The gore effects are really well done here and as in Offspring, the filmmakers leave nothing to the imagination and show the audience these kills with all the blood and intestines and organs in their arsenal.

I think The Woman is looked at as a "love it or hate it" movie (or an "understand it or don't understand it" movie) and it may not be for everyone (especially this guy) but I'm one of the ones that loved it. It is probably the best adaptation of Ketchum's work so far, and though the handling of the material at some parts is not to my liking, the performances, editing, and effects more than make up for it.

P.S. Jack Ketchum rules!

Book Review: The Woman by Jack Ketchum

I thought Jack Ketchum had gone just about as far as he could go with books like Off Season and The Girl Next Door. Turns out that there are new levels of evil and grotesqueness that I never realized - or maybe I just didn't want to. The Woman is one of the most disturbing things I've read simply for the amount of sin and hellish acts depicted by just about every character.

Many spoilers ahead.

In The Woman, the last survivor of the feral cannibal clan from Off Season and Offspring - aptly given the name "the Woman" - is captured by hunter Chris Cleek. He restrains her in his fruit cellar in an attempt to tame her, with the help of his wife and children.

When first reading the synopses for this book, I thought that the character of the man who captures the Woman would be a normal guy who was really actually trying to help her to stop being a feral cannibal killer. This most certainly turns out not to be the case.

Cleek is in fact the most amoral, evil, and misogynistic person I've ever had the displeasure of reading about (I can't wait to see how angry I get at him when I see the movie). Like I said there are spoilers here, and I just have to put down all the horrible things this man represents and what he does. Let's see... he captures the Woman; chains her in his fruit cellar; introduces her to his family as some sort of trophy; abuses the Woman; rapes the Woman; beats his wife (in front of his children); keeps his 10-year-old disabled daughter chained in the barn with the dogs, letting her become a feral flesh-eater not unlike the Woman herself; has been raping his daughter Peg for several years and has gotten her pregnant; and murders Peg's lesbian teacher by literally feeding her to the dogs. I've left out some little things, but that is the bulk of his evil deeds. On top of all this, he is teaching and encouraging his son to be just like him - and the son happily obliges.

So how could anyone not get angered and/or offended by what they read in The Woman? Is Ketchum simply out to shock his readers with the most vile things he can think of? To a point... maybe he is. It's what has gotten him noticed and sells books, but, and I know I don't the man personally, he doesn't seem like that kind of guy to me. I like books and movies who take things to the extreme, I like people who have the balls to show us the ugly side of things, and not just because they can but because sometimes really profound things can actually be learned. Ketchum proved that with the complexity of The Girl Next Door - another book that on the surface is simply full of cruel acts of torture with no moral compass. But TGND brings up many important moral and societal issues, as does The Woman - so why does it matter what means Ketchum uses to convey these points?

The problem with The Woman, and most of Ketchum's other novels, is that it was too short. I read this book on a lazy Sunday afternoon in only a few hours. And this is a shame for a book with such power - or at least the potential for a powerful message. Many will think that the focus is only on the gore and the continual degradation of the women in the book, but in a strange way, this is can be seen as a story of female empowerment.

Okay, wait, hear me out. This is a common thing with Ketchum's works. He often hides the most poignant messages and insights into society underneath the most brutal stories and unlikable characters. The Woman gives us the epitome of the worst man in the world put up against this physically strong and powerful woman who doesn't really give a shit what he does to her because those things don't matter to her. She's a survivor and a fighter and Cleek is no match for her, despite what his male ego tells him. In the end, all of the women untainted by his evil mindset come out the winners and go on to survive and thrive, living the way they want to.

Fans of Ketchum and gorehounds alike will probably enjoy The Woman for its nastiness, but I'm not ready to dismiss it just yet as nothing but sleaze. Looking deeper, I see something more to it and I hope others do, too.

I'm still a bit confused about the inclusion of the last section of the book entitled "Cow." It is essentially an epilogue, but quite a long one, and though it reveals what I thought the end of the book meant for Peg and the Woman's future, it's an odd way to present it. It's told from the point of view of the women's male captive, and if you've read Off Season and Offspring, you know what it means when this guy is known as a "cow" to the women. Not saying I didn't like it, just that it was different.