THE HOUSEMAID is a 2025 thriller from director Paul Feig, the guy who did BRIDESMAIDS, THE HEAT and SPY, but remember he also did A SIMPLE FAVOR. This is in that vein: twisty, a little sexy, a little trashy, all in good fun. A romp.
Sydney Sweeney (THE MARTIAL ARTS KID) stars as Millie Calloway, who applies for a job as live-in maid for rich lady Nina Winchester (Amanda Seyfried, FIRST REFORMED) in her big ol’ gated estate. Millie lies about her experience, pretends to be overqualified, but narrates to us that she doesn’t know why she even applied, because a background check will reveal she’s a felon on parole. Wrong! She gets the job. Sydney Sweeney is… THE HOUSEMAID.
One red flag about the job is that on day one Nina excitedly welcomes her, saying “It’s gonna be fun, Millie!,” but gives zero explanation for why the house looks completely trashed, like there was a huge party and not one single thing was picked up afterwards. Millie cleans and cooks and gets a triangular attic room that’s decidedly not as nice as any other room in the entire house, but maybe she means it when she politely says “It’s perfect,” because it’s a step up for her. By the way, is it weird that the window doesn’t open and the door only locks from the outside and she has to ask a couple times before she gets the key for it? Eh, it’s probly nothing. Nina is really nice at first and we assume her little girl Cece (Indiana Elle) will warm up to Millie eventually. For now she just pouts and lectures her about fresh-from-the-dishwasher glasses being too dirty. (read the rest of this shit…)
May 6, 1994
THE VOYEURS (2021) is a type of movie I really don’t think I’ve seen before: an erotic thriller that feels very now. It has the familiar ingredients of a ‘90s Skinemax joint: voyeurism (of course), extremely beautiful people with enviable living situations, obsession that brings out sides of people they didn’t know were there and slowly erodes a previously strong relationship, deception, forbidden desire, kinkiness, long sexual tension building to super hot but dangerous sex, death, a ridiculous twist. And yet it doesn’t feel remotely Shannon Tweedy. You almost question whether it’s the same genre, but clearly it is.
POISON IVY was a movie, then a franchise, and a genre, and an American institution. I don’t know if it was the first erotic thriller that could be described as “teenage FATAL ATTRACTION,” but I do think it kicked off many more of them, likely influencing movies like THE CRUSH, THE BABYSITTER, DEVIL IN THE FLESH and SWIMFAN, and evolving into 
Sara Gilbert (four seasons into Roseanne) made her movie debut starring as Sylvie “Coop” Cooper, protagonist and narrator-via-journal-entries. She’s a private school kid who sees herself as an outcast whose very rich parents don’t understand her. She wears Doc Martens, a tie-dyed yin yang shirt, and has an Egyptian eye design shaved discreetly under her hair. She smokes cigarillos, including in bed. She claims to have no friends*. She tells needless lies, like that she’s adopted, and that she’s half Black, and that she tried to commit suicide. Also she plays piano, loves her dog Fred (who she says doesn’t like any other humans), and teaches reading to inner city kids two days a week. A messed up kid but a good kid. 
I know Valentine’s Day is a made-up greeting card company holiday, but that doesn’t mean I can’t celebrate by watching the notoriously bad Bruce Willis sex movie that you guys voted #1 in the outlawvern.com “Review Suggestions” feature. If my movie watching happens to match up with the agendas of Hershey’s Chocolate and the local florists then so be it. It seemed right anyway.
