The Woman / Offspring

[mfunk9786]

Almost a decade after Lucky McKee burst upon the indie horror scene and became a ‘Master of Horror’ in the making thanks to his directorial debut May, he teamed up with legendary cult author Jack Ketchum for his most shocking and brutal film to date: The Woman, an instant cause célèbre on its Sundance premiere.

The Woman (Pollyanna McIntosh, The Walking Dead) is the last surviving member of a deadly clan of feral cannibals that has roamed the American wilderness for decades. When successful country lawyer Chris Cleek (Sean Bridgers, Room) stumbles upon her whilst hunting in the woods, he decides to capture and “civilize” her with the help of his seemingly perfect all-American family, including his wife Belle (Angela Bettis, May) and daughter Peggy (Lauren Ashley Carter, Darling). The Cleeks will soon learn, however, that hell hath no fury like The Woman scorned…

Experience McKee and Ketchum’s uncompromisingly twisted vision of the dark side of the American family in a definitive new edition, including a 4K remaster, brand new bonus features, and a bonus disc featuring a brand new restoration of its gut-churning 2009 predecessor Offspring, also starring McIntosh.

TWO-DISC LIMITED EDITION CONTENTS

• Brand new 4K restorations of The Woman and Offspring, supervised and approved by Lucky McKee and Andrew van den Houten
• Reversible sleeve featuring newly commissioned artwork for both films by Vanessa McKee
• Collectors’ booklet featuring new writing by Michael Blyth, Alexandra Heller-Nicholas and Kevin Kovelant

DISC ONE – THE WOMAN

• New 4K restoration supervised and approved by Lucky McKee
• High Definition Blu-ray™ (1080p) presentation
• Original DTS-HD MA 5.1 surround
• Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
• New commentary with director Lucky McKee, editor Zach Passero, sound designer Andrew Smetek and composer Sean Spillane
• New commentary by star Pollyanna McIntosh
• New commentary by critic Scott Weinberg
• Archive commentary with director Lucky McKee
• Dad on the Wall, a brand new 75-minute fly-on-the-wall behind-the-scenes documentary filmed by the director's father Mike McKee
• Being Peggy Cleek, a newly filmed interview with star Lauren Ashley Carter
• Malam Domesticam, an archive making-of featurette
• Meet The Makers, a short featurette on the making of the film
• Deleted Scenes
• Mi Burro, a short film by editor Zach Passero
• “Distracted” music video by Sean Spillane
• Frightfest Total Film Panel Discussion, a 2011 onstage chat about the future of American indie horror at the popular horror film festival, featuring Lucky McKee, Andrew van den Houten, Larry Fessenden, Adam Green, Joe Lynch and Ti West
• Theatrical trailers
• Image galleries

DISC TWO – OFFSPRING (LIMITED EDITION EXCLUSIVE)

• New 4K restoration supervised and approved by Andrew van den Houten
• High Definition Blu-ray™ (1080p) presentation
• Original DTS-HD MA 5.1 surround
• Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
• New commentary by director/producer Andrew van den Houten
• Archive commentary with writer Jack Ketchum, director/producer Andrew van den Houten and producer/cinematographer William M. Miller
• New interview with Pollyanna McIntosh and Andrew van den Houten
• Fly on the Wall, a brand new fly-on-the-wall behind-the-scenes documentary
• Extended interview with Jack Ketchum
• Restoration comparison
• Progeny: The Birth of Offspring, an archive behind-the-scenes featurette including interviews with cast and crew
• First Stolen’s Bailout, an archive behind-the-scenes featurette
• Webisodes, short featurettes used to promote the film online
• Archive Easter Eggs
• Theatrical trailer
• Image gallery
• BD-ROM screenplay

[JamesF]

This film certainly had an effect on this guy who was kicked out of a Sundance Q&A. While I haven't seen the film yet, I will never understand the connection between merely showing something terrible on screen and accusations of the person behind the film being of the same mindset as the terrible character(s) performing those horrendous actions. The idea that Neil LaBute was called a misogynist after making In the Company of Men is laughable to me. And the idea that Lucky McKee doesn't like woman is baffling considering his body of work.

I'm looking forward to watching this one however I get the chance to. Who knows when it's actually going to be released (yet again no studio or big indie label seems to want to touch McKee), it's been picked up by BloodyDisgusting.com and The Collective for theatrical release (whatever that means) with a release date TBD. There's been a DVD screener of it that's floating around, but I'd ideally like to see this on the big screen. May is one of the most underrated and sadly under-seen films of my lifetime, and I just wish that McKee could get over this career hump that's plaguing him. At least he was able to direct this one without the producer stealing his job halfway through production or the studio recutting the film to ribbons.

I'll be seeing this in London next month with McKee in attendance, and am very excited. McKee and Larry Fessenden (also at Frightfest this year) are, to my mind, the two best filmmakers in American indie horror at really using the genre to put across a personal vision in the manner of, say, early Romero (rather than just homaging earlier films in the name of fan service).

The trailer for the film recently premiered quietly on the Frightfest website - but be warned, it's very, very, very spoilery. So much, in fact, I wish I hadn't seen it Still looking forward to the film though.

[zombeaner]

Here's my review, I digress a bit toward the end to make the point you guys are making, but in any case I really liked it.

[domino harvey]

A film about a man who finds a woman in the woods, ties her up naked in his barn, and treats her with increasingly deplorable inhumanity. GOLLY, SOUNDS GREAT!!!! Let's assume the film indeed does have a progressive slant and something to say about the attitude of men or society towards women-- was there not a way to say such things without providing the same prurient titillation that besmirches so many of the "horror" movies that emerged post-Halloween?

[zombeaner]

A film about a man who finds a woman in the woods, ties her up naked in his barn, and treats her with increasingly deplorable inhumanity. GOLLY, SOUNDS GREAT!!!! Let's assume the film indeed does have a progressive slant and something to say about the attitude of men or society towards women-- was there not a way to say such things without providing the same prurient titillation that besmirches so many of the "horror" movies that emerged post-Halloween?

It is about more than that, but excellent work judging it before you've seen it, I should have reviewed it that way, it would have been much easier.

[domino harvey]

A film about a man who finds a woman in the woods, ties her up naked in his barn, and treats her with increasingly deplorable inhumanity. GOLLY, SOUNDS GREAT!!!! Let's assume the film indeed does have a progressive slant and something to say about the attitude of men or society towards women-- was there not a way to say such things without providing the same prurient titillation that besmirches so many of the "horror" movies that emerged post-Halloween?

It is about more than that, but excellent work judging it before you've seen it, I should have reviewed it that way, it would have been much easier.

I haven't stuck my hand in fire but I have a pretty good idea that it'd burn. That I haven't seen the film doesn't make my question any less valid.

[knives]

I stick my hand into fire all the time, you just need to know how to do it without getting burned.

[domino harvey]

Wasn't there a way to burn your hand without sticking it into a fire, you pyrosigynist

[zombeaner]

The problem with your question is that it makes assumptions that aren't valid. I thought Mary Whitehouse was dead?

[mfunk9786]

McKee's past work is aggressively pro-women and about as far as horror gets from misogyny. If anyone deserves a viewer's trust with a project like this, it's him.

[domino harvey]

Well, obviously I hope you're right.

[knives]

I'll second that McKee's work has a good feminist bent to it. I've only seen May and that one episode of Masters of Horror, but they pretty consistently look at the alienation that comes from what society treats as a woman's place in the world versus what they actually strive. All this with a grand dash of comedy.

[Soothsayer]

Well, obviously I hope you're right.

But would you actually see the film? And if not, why even post in this thread?

[Mr Sausage]

Any number of movies sound unwatchable if you summarize them the right way. Straw Dogs sounds deplorable in a simple summary, but is enormously complex as an actual viewing experience. While Domino isn't wrong to say that McKee's movie sounds like something that could be tasteless and prurient, he also isn't doing much to distance himself from the rhetoric of many censors and censorship organizations (someone brought up Whitehouse I think) who do the same thing, condemn work they haven't seen on limited information because that information sounds immoral.

Domino, the reason your question isn't valid is because you cannot claim to know that the movie is either prurient or titillating. You can guess, but those qualities are produced, not by the material, but by its presentation. Without having seen the presentation, you're not in a good position to take a moral stand.

[domino harvey]

Fair enough

[CircusVocabulary]

Uh...yeah, what the hell. That trailer is really wretched and with that music certainly gives it the vibe that something about this is "fun" or something. Whatever.

[mfunk9786]

Domino, the reason your question isn't valid is because you cannot claim to know that the movie is either prurient or titillating. You can guess, but those qualities are produced, not by the material, but by its presentation. Without having seen the presentation, you're not in a good position to take a moral stand.

To be fair, Sausage, that's sort of exactly what you did throughout this exchange.

[Mr Sausage]

Domino, the reason your question isn't valid is because you cannot claim to know that the movie is either prurient or titillating. You can guess, but those qualities are produced, not by the material, but by its presentation. Without having seen the presentation, you're not in a good position to take a moral stand.

To be fair, Sausage, that's sort of exactly what you did throughout this exchange.

I believe I was discussing what your defense of the film implied about it if logically extended, not making claims about the film on its own. Perhaps the difference is fine, but I still make it.

[DDillaman]

So this was the first movie I've walked out in a long time. To be clear, it wasn't because I was offended, but because it was such a tedious mess of a film, in such an uninteresting way. There's nothing remotely resembling consistent tone, or even any idea what the film's trying to be - the pre-credits scene is absurdly serious, the next scene is flat and bland, and then it appears it might be going for dark comedy, then splatter (with "intensity" being created by painful drones and noises rather than staging or tension or anything), then ... eh. I love a good surprising tonal shift, but this ain't DOGTOOTH or THE HOST - when you can't establish a tone, or plausible characters, or a coherent allegorical scenario, there's nothing to cling on to, and despite some clunky performances and some of the most ludicrous music selects I've heard, it wasn't inept enough to be entertaining on even a BIRDEMIC-type level. After about 40 minutes, I realized all I had to look forward to was the specific nature of the inevitable indignities and the order in which they were inflicted, and "ooh, boy! I bet there's gonna be a rape!" is not enough to keep me in the theatre. My friend, who stayed through the whole thing, complimented me on my wise choice afterwards.

(As reference, I also saw I SAW THE DEVIL and COLD FISH in the past week, both of which I thought were strong films, lest anyone think this is a "oh, you just can't handle the rough stuff" kind of comment.)

My take from what I saw, in re: misogyny, is that it was going for the SERBIAN FILM or mondo film kind of "oh, we depict this only because it is in fact a deep socially important thing" - making the overall structure an anti-misogynist statement as an excuse to portray misogyny within the text for entertainment's sake. (The introduction shot of the female teacher, while not misogynist per se, is very sexualized for no particularly obvious reason, and hard to reconcile with the notion of this being an ardently feminist film.) But again, not having seen the whole thing, I don't feel comfortable pushing that point too hard, and the women involved seem to be ardently defending the film, for what that's worth.

[mfunk9786]

All I really took away from The Woman was that it is completely misguided, and not in the ways that you might expect. The film is far from a misogynist picture, making all the female characters on the screen intelligent and level-headed, if not always able to let those traits show due to tyranny from the males. When I say that the film is misguided, I was thinking more along the lines of direction and tone. I am crestfallen to see Lucky McKee embrace his less appealing traits as a director, squashing any possibility of the film having any sense of mood with the same absolutely execrable, unrecognizable (and just not very good at all) pop music that he always utilizes, this time cranked up to a volume level that totally stripped any moments that were intended to be dramatic of any of their impact. Making matters worse, the direction has the same low-budget feel (McKee knows better, as The Woods looked pretty great, and May made due with a very low budget as well) as Roman or Sick Girl when it comes to scenes that are supposed to accurately portray, say, a school - all the extras feel out of place and supporting actors (the teacher, in particular) are weak and wooden and seem to just be friends that were invited to the set - which is, again, one of McKee's fatal weaknesses as a director. As a result, the central story and the strong performance by Pollyanna McIntosh are refuges from the rest of the film, where they should be its centerpiece. Sean Bridgers is appropriately slimy as the father, and some of the plot points truly are disturbing. But there are enough gaps in the dialogue and the plot that the entire thing just seemed to need a rewrite by someone who doesn't find Ketchum's work to be the be-all and end-all (it isn't, oh boy it isn't) of horror writing. Take the scene when Angela Bettis (great here as she always is) confronts Bridgers about what her son has been discovered as doing. What we just saw was something far more horrific than she chooses to describe, yet without explanation, she decides to leave out all of the gory details of what took place (even though it wouldn't have mattered anyway, as the scene goes on it becomes increasingly confusing as to why she wouldn't just lay the whole thing on the table). Instances of spousal violence and implications of even more disturbing family unease imposed by Bridgers' character have their necessary impact, and I will admit that during the third act, I was almost quaking with disgust, which was the idea, I suppose. But goofy little horror tags like the film's final moments (which might be a little higher up on the "oh, you're taking it there?" distaste scale than even the ending of Manos: The Hands of Fate) never let The Woman get where it needs to go to be even close to a good horror film, let alone a good overall effort by the otherwise quite talented McKee. Definitely disappointed by this film and I should hope that McKee realizes where he's gone wrong as well, and that we're not going to see more of the same from him in the future.

[DarkImbecile]

This looks like a must for the May fans in the house

[therewillbeblus]

Are either of these films on par with that one, or is May a one-hit wonder?

[Glowingwabbit]

Are either of these films on par with that one, or is May a one-hit wonder?

I haven't seen Offspring, but no The Woman is not on par with May. Not sure why someone would think fans of May would want this.

[DarkImbecile]

Someone might not have seen May or any of McKee's films, but someone might have made a connection to the recent discussion of that film and want to bring it to people's attention.

[cdnchris]

Interestingly, if I'm reading it all right, The Woman is getting a release in the States, but the combo (The Woman/Offspring) is only available in Canada and the UK (though I assume all will at least be region A/B).