The Woman

Director: Lucky McKee
Screenwriters: Jack Ketchum, Lucky McKee

Institute History

  • 2011 Sundance Film Festival

Description

Good-old-fashioned-horror impresario Lucky McKee (McKee’s May screened at the 2002 Sundance Film Festival) returns to Park City with an outrageously sadistic peek under the surface of family values gone terribly wrong.
When stern patriarch Chris Cleek stumbles upon a wild woman while hunting deep in the woods, he does what he believes is the only logical thing—he stalks, captures, and imprisons the savage in his shed with the intent of civilizing her. Naturally, Cleek wants his whole family to participate in the process; refusal is not an option for his frail wife, reluctant daughters, and all-too-eager son. As his training methods turn increasingly torturous, resistance is met with brute force and animalistic urges, building meticulously to an unrelenting, carnage-filled climax.
Writhing through themes of abuse, legacies, and adolescent pain, McKee’s exercise in cruelty gleefully grinds the classic Pygmalion story into a macabre pulp for all to enjoy.

— Landon Zakheim

Screening Details

Credits

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