"Dad has a new tenant"

Title: The Woman
Year: 2011
Genre: Crime, Drama, Horror
Director: Lucky Mckee
Writer: Lucky Mckee, Jack Ketchum (basado en su novela homónima)
Cast: Sean Bridgers, Pollyana McIntosh,  Lauren Ashley Carter, Angela Bettis.
Produc.: Modernciné

A few hours ago, thinking about how I would address this review, I started surfing the web and so I learned that this film adaptation is a sequel to another adaptation of a work by Mr. Ketchum, called Offspring, but directed by Andrew van den Houten. Then, I also realized that I´d frame of this second book in my library for a couple of months now. I explain this detail just as a curiosity. Following, I move on to my commentary on the film.

In The Woman we are presented to a family of five members, consisting of the father, Chris Cleek (Sean Bridgers), his wife Bell (Angela Bettis), his son Brian (Zach Rand) and his two daughters, Peggy the oldest (Lauren Ashley Carter) and Darlin (Shyla Molhusen). At first glance they all seem to be relatively normal people and the only aspect that we are mentioned at the outset is the fact that Peggy might not be having a good time in her life, plunged into a state of crisis, when she is always sad and silent, but we do not know until much later what she so much worries about.

However, the initial turning point comes with the departure of Chris to the forest, where he plans to enjoy hunting with his rifle. It is there that we are suddenly seeing a hunter practicing his usual sport, until he encounters that a few meters of his location there is a strange woman dressed almost in rags and whose posture and way of behaving are more similar to Tarzan´s than of any other human being. Given an image like this one would suppose that this good samaritan will rush to help her. In contrast, the situation we see will be most alarming, when Chris makes this savage woman fall into a trap, to take her captured into a basement just yards from his home, where he will have her arms and legs tied, just like the movies of serial murderers.

Later in the film, when Chris teaches his wife and children his new purchase, things get even more confusing, not only because nobody here is going to show too scared, but because Chris states that their mission as a family is to work together to tame her and make her to become decent and presentable. As the movie completes about an hour and a half of its course, we have discovered that Chris is not a sane man, if not a sadistic and wild monster (far more than his prisoner), capable of attacking the poor woman, both physically and sexually. Add to this the scene in which Brian as well decides to indulge himself at the expense of her, while he fills her with cuts, and then we already have a cocktail of violence.

In The Woman surprises come and go. Not because what is revealed could be something new in the genre, because it is not, but it does adds tension and uncertainty, placing this film with those worth watching, having so many real bad ones.

Something also positive and that contributes to the film, not to just be a bloody me, is the family context. We have an introverted mother, fearful of revealing herself to her husband and that when encouraged to stand up she gets a couple of heavy blows, ending on the floor. A daughter who we finally understand that has initiated in her sex life at the wrong time, becoming pregnant, and whose teacher, Miss Raton (Carlee Baker), who goes to her house to help her, will in turn receive a similar treatment to that of the prisoner. And a child too young to process what it is happening and whose adult model is a lunatic sick in the head.

At the end what we get to conclude is that the only one more or less outside the madness is the innocent Darlin, for being so small and still immature.

My rating: 5/10

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