So there’s this character called “The Woman.” Growling, feral berserker covered in grime, part of basically a modern day lost tribe, wild cannibals living like savages in forests, hills and caves, occasionally invading civilization to hunt meat or steal children. She was created by Jack Ketchum, I think for the book Offspring, though that’s a sequel to Off Season, which I haven’t read, so maybe she’s in that too. In the 2009 film OFFSPRING she was played by Pollyanna McIntosh, who later played Jadis on The Walking Dead and Angel on Hap and Leonard. I didn’t think OFFSPRING worked, but I’m glad McIntosh was so good in it that they made her survive and let Lucky McKee direct a sequel in 2011. He wrote both the movie THE WOMAN and a book version in collaboration with Ketchum.
In that story, a middle class dad spots The Woman while hunting, captures her, chains her up in his shed, tries to so-called civilize her. It’s an outrageous allegory about misogyny and generational abuse, and when I rewatched it last year I thought it was even better and more relevant than it seemed when it came out. It holds up as one of the best horror movies of the 2000s.
Now The Woman is back in DARLIN’, released today on blu-ray and dvd. It’s another interesting standalone story and it’s written and directed by McIntosh herself. There are some funny behind the scenes shots in the extras with her directing in full costume or in civilian clothes but caked in dirt makeup. (read the rest of this shit…)
I never heard of this one until I saw THE WOMAN. If you didn’t hear, Lucky McKee came up with that one because he saw OFFSPRING and was impressed by Pollyanna McIntosh’s portrayal of the feral, cannibalistic savage also called The Woman. OFFSPRING itself is an adaptation of a book by Jack Ketchum, which is in fact a sequel to another book called Off Season. So after I loved THE WOMAN so much I decided to read those.
THE LOST pulled me in right away. On the screen it says “Once upon a time, a boy named Ray Pye put crushed beer cans in his boots to make himself taller.” And to the tune of what sounds like an old rock ‘n roll tune (but is actually a modern song I guess – the time period of the movie is indistinct) we see these boots strutting awkwardly toward an outhouse. Their owner surprises a buxom young girl (Erin Brown, better known as Misty Mundae) on her way out, buck naked. “I thought we were alone out here,” she says, embarrassed. He asks her if she has a cigarette.
Honestly all I knew going into THE WOMAN was who made it, that it was supposed to be really good, and that 
