The Woman

The Woman is a torture-porn film directed by someone named Lucky McGee.  The people who make these kinds of picture, often, have aspirations toward working in the  legit film industry and, so, movies of this kind are elaborately calculated -- the director wants to establish his credentials as an inventive legitimate film maker, but, also, of course, has to deliver the sex and violence required in a exploitation film.  Furthermore, images of extreme violence against women can sometimes be justified, albeit in bad faith, as some sort of critique of the phallocracy.  The Woman is annoyingly artsy and, adding insult to injury, anxious to be perceived as critical of male domination over women.  But, at its heart, the film is trash -- torture porn dressed up with quasi-feminist trappings.

The villain in The Woman is a right-wing real estate lawyer, a good-lucking man who knows that he is trim and handsome; the bad guy has some of the vapid good looks of Mitt Romney -- he's got the square jaw and rugged features of a Mormon cowboy.  The bad guy has a submissive wife, two daughters, and a sadistic teenage son.  The villain rules the roost with an iron fist, justifying his misconduct by a noxious mix of ideological ranting and bullying intimidation.  (We see him in the workplace obnoxiously flirting with his pretty secretary -- it's clear that the bad guy is supposed to be monstrous in all respects.)  Of course, he's got problems at home -- he's captured a feral woman, a shapely bedraggled damsel who was apparently raised by wolves.  He's got her chained up in a shed with a smaller side-kick, a mutilated feral girl who acts like a vicious dog.  The bad guy's teenage daughter is moping around because she is pregnant as a result of rape by her father.  The teenage boy spends his afternoons imitating daddy -- that is, sexually assaulting and torturing the feral woman.  When the daughter's teacher, a comely young woman, comes for a visit to the family home, all hell breaks loose.  The teacher gets knocked-out and, then, fed to the feral dog-girl.  The wife ends up with internal injuries after being repeatedly punched in the belly, but, before she drops dead, she released the feral woman.  The feral woman is not happy with the way she's been treated since her capture and, so, needless to say, she avenges herself by ripping the villain and his son to pieces.  Then, having affirmed the power of sisterhood, the feral woman, the dog-girl, and the pregnant teenager light out for the territories. 

This is dank, morbid stuff only fitfully interesting, shot in grim mildewed shacks that are mostly very dark.  The actions scenes are botched and the feral dog-girl, instrumental in eating the teacher, isn't introduced until about five minutes before the end of the movie.  Where was she hiding the rest of the time?  The State of Massachusetts provided tax credits for the video nasty and, proudly, takes credit for it.  There is a loud overly intrusive folk-rock soundtrack sometimes played over tortures scenes or concealing the banal dialogue -- it's as if someone owed a favor to the musician whose name is, I kid you not, Sean Spillane.  The acting is fairly good and the villain is evil enough that we enjoy his dismemberment at the film's climax.