I’ve been on a spooky #boosexual movie binge, and today, I’d like to introduce you all to May (2002). This one managed to creep me out enough that I think I am also ending my scary movie binge. Jennifer's Body (2009) and All Cheerleaders Die (2013) were definitely on the black comedy side of the genre. May is definitely more gruesome and disturbing than others I've been watching lately (although it still has some humorous moments).
Fun side note, I found this movie because it is directed by Lucky McKee, the same director as All Cheerleaders Die.
I’m going to start by saying if you are creeped out by dolls, stop now. Turn back. Do Not Continue.
There will be SPOILERS from here on out and if you’d like to know more about how The Unicorn Scale works, check out the full explanation of the scale.
Now that I’ve covered that very important warning above, let’s talk about May.
May is about a young woman, May (Angela Bettis), who has a lazy eye and had to wear an eyepatch when she was younger. The subsequent teasing made it hard for young May to find friends, and so her mother gave her the creepiest doll ever created. This is a special doll that her mother had made and was too special to be played with. Suzie, the terrifying doll, becomes May’s only friend even when she grows to be an incredibly awkward adult.
She has a hard time making friends in adulthood as well but does attempt some overtures with Adam (Jeremy Sisto). She is super duper weird, and he eventually rebuffs her. She also starts up a fling with her coworker Polly (Anna Farris). Everything goes south with her various relationships, and she remembers her mom’s old adage, “If you can’t find a friend, make one.”
What I Liked:
I think one of the reasons I’m getting sucked into bi horror is there is no room for queer conflict. Everyone is too worried about dismemberment as a conflict to care about the queer part.
May falls in love with Adam first. Some of you may remember the actor who plays Adam as Elton in Clueless (1995).
He's still kind of the worst. She falls in love in the most dysfunctional way possible, but she does love him in the only way she knows how. Watching May pursue Adam is awkward and painful but also sweet and adorable.
You feel bad for May when he rejects her, even though he was definitely making the right choice in doing so.
Polly is May’s gregarious coworker at a vet clinic. They bond over being weird and bored together. Polly seduces a lonely May and seems to really enjoy her new strange friend. Although May is hesitant at first, she clearly enjoys the seduction. May’s hesitance seems to be more an extension of her extreme awkwardness than Polly’s gender.
When May comes over and finds Polly with another woman, she seems to break. She tries to play it cool but also starts to tear up when she realizes that Polly has another woman over. This final rejection causes her to have some kind of a break.
Her Terrifying Doll/Friend starts to whisper to her at this point, and the two start to plot together.
May realizes that everyone she’s been attracted to is flawed in one way or another and decides that she needs to make the perfect friend.
I also really appreciate that even as May's behavior gets more erratic and murderous, she remains oddly charming. I'm not going to say I was rooting for her, but I didn't hate her either.
What I Didn’t Like:
I don’t think that May’s murderous urges are portrayed as symptoms of her bisexuality. She is not the stereotypical manipulative, murderous bi using her sexuality as a weapon.
Yet, there is something still a little unsavory to me about the portrayal of her bisexuality. At some point, her bisexuality seems like a symptom of her mental health problems. She has spent her whole life friendless. As an adult, she finds herself beginning to crave romantic relationships as well as friendships.
In fact, she’s so desperate that she doesn’t even care about the gender of her partners. She is so desperate for human touch that the person that the touch comes from doesn’t seem to bother her.
I think I get this vibe in part because she pursues Adam so aggressively and yet takes such a passive role in her brief fling with Polly.
When I was growing up, I remember someone telling me that a friend of my mother’s had “become a lesbian” because a man broke her heart. We have all heard this in some form or another, that a person turned queer as some kind of a consolation prize or because they don’t have the fortitude to keep dating their first choices.
I don’t think that this is the entire story of May, and Polly is certainly an aspect of May’s perfect person, but I do think there is an element of the idea that May is so broken that she is attracted to men and women.
The Rating:
Even though the desperation leads to bisexuality idea bugged me, I really enjoyed this movie. The first half was sweet and awkward and oddly touching. The more horror part of the film was incredibly effective. Even as I was hiding my eyes and hugging my dog, I was oddly charmed by May’s murderous rampage.
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