Pollyanna McIntosh is best known these days for her recurring role as Jadis / Anne in The Walking Dead. Before that though, she was already well known in horror circuits for her role as a wild tribeswoman in both Offspring and The Woman. Recently acquired by Arrow Video, The Woman has been given a new lease on life with a snazzy new restoration and blu-ray release. In the film, directed by Lucky McKee, McIntosh reprises her role of the woman following her turn in Offspring, but finds herself in rather different circumstances. Stolen away from her woodland existence by lawyer and family man Chris (Sean Bridgers), she finds herself subjected to the strangest take on the My Fair Lady lessons. Chris is determined to tame the ferocious female and recruits his family in to help save her soul and make her more compliant. It soon transpires though that Chris, and his teenage son Brian (Zach Rand), are anything but civilised and a battle for control breaks out.
Arrow Video
A film mired in controversy upon its initial release, it now feels like a much more understanding climate to revisit The Woman. Back in 2011, some audiences believed the film was too misogynistic and anti-women, and deemed it to be glorifying the bad behaviour of the men involved. This led to many boxing it into the torture porn sub-genre. Watching with fresh eyes though, the film feels very relevant in the post #MeToo movement world in which we live. Yes all the women are oppressed in some way by the men surrounding them, but the men aren’t displayed as heroes; if anything it’s the ultimate display of toxic masculinity. They also get their comeuppance, the woman essentially liberates this family from their patriarchal controllers. As far as the torture porn element goes, yes there are moments of intense abuse, physical, psychological and sexual, but none of it is lingered on for too long. As with most things in life, McKee understands that less is always more, leaving it to the viewer’s imagination to fill in the blanks.
Given the content, themes and issues explored within The Woman, the performances are just as important as the writing and direction to convey the right tone. The majority of this comes via a magnetic performance from McIntosh. Her role is for all intents and purposes – mute. She also spends most of the film chained up with a limited range of motion. This means that the majority of her performance comes via her eyes. Thankfully, McIntosh has some very expressive peepers and can deliver a myriad of emotions in just one glance. Frequent McKee collaborator Angela Bettis is equally strong in her turn as Belle, the downtrodden maternal figure of the family. There’s one scene in particular that feature both females, and though neither say any actual words, it’s one of the standouts of the film.
Newly restored in 4K, The Woman has never looked better. The 2011 feature was made on a relatively modest budget and this little makeover completely transforms the movie. Even if you’ve seen the film before, you’ve never seen or heard it quite like this. The images are crisp; the colour palette popping with more vibrancy and darkness takes on a much more potent edge. It is the sound design that truly makes this restoration though, and achieves the feat of making the viewer feel like they really are in that barn too.
This being an Arrow Video release, the discs are obviously packed to the rafters with bonus content. The first is that for a limited run, The Woman comes with a copy of the first film in the series – Offspring. Directed by Andrew van den Houten, the film introduced Pollyanna’s character and charted the story of the events that led to the woman being the last surviving member of her clan. Other features include a series of new commentaries with cast and crew, deleted scenes, and footage of the 2011 FrightFest panel with director Lucky McKee and several other high-profile genre filmmakers. The highlight though is a fly-on-the-wall style documentary, which was created from footage that Lucky McKee’s father Mike McKee shot during the production. Running almost as long as the feature itself, it offers an intimate insight into the blood, sweat and tears that go into making a movie, with none of the typical talking heads in sight.
With McIntosh recently moving behind the camera herself to continue the story of the woman and the youngest member of the Cleek family in Darlin‘, now is the perfect time to revisit / uncover Lucky McKee’s The Woman. A true labour of love, this release completely rejuvenates a film that was criminally overlooked the first time around. If you missed it in 2011, now’s you’re chance to fix that mistake.
The Woman is available to own on blu-ray now.
