I didn’t even remember what this movie was when I found it in my collection, but it fits the series quite well, so here we are.

Spoilers.

May has a lazy eye, which made it impossible for her to make friends (probably made worse by her mother) as a child, leaving her socially awkward in adulthood. Her only friend is a doll made by her mother to whom May tells all her secrets. May meets a guy, Adam, she is interested in immediately, but things don’t exactly go well.

When May comments on the perfection of Adam’s hands to the doll and later on she tells her colleague that she has a beautiful neck, I remembered (or just inferred) what this was about. May says early on that she found imperfections in people she met, so she decides build her own friend using parts from various people she meets.

The killing doesn’t start until about an hour into the movie, which leaves us plenty of time to get familiar with May and her quickly deepeningn mental problems. By that time we have seen all her attempts to connect with people, which always seem to backfire due to her lack of comfort in those situations or in some cases trusting people to meet her expectations. This does leave the movie a bit lopsided, but I couldn’t tell you how to fix it. We need to understand May to sympathize with her, which is honestly kind of hard, as she is probably too weird for most people.

The problem is that I’m not sure what the movie is trying to say. On one hand, in the beginning the feeling is that we should be inclusive and not leave children behind, but later on the message seems to move into the direction of weird equalling danger. Of course, this is a horror movie and as the audience we should understand that being unsocial is far away from being anti-social. However, neuroatypical people are generally not dangerous (they are actually usually more in danger, as they are unprotected in various ways because of their situation) and I do wish movies would emphasize this a little bit more.

Still, if we would somehow “cancel” all horror movies with this approach, that wouldn’t leave too many. Also, there have been a lot of killers with mental problems. It’s just that it’s not the norm. I’m just not sure what to think in this specific case. This is probably, because despite my profession as a teacher and having plenty of friends, I am also very introverted and I sometimes – well often – find myself feeling very awkward in social situations.

The real reason is that introverted people tend to be able to read various cues better than others, but also have a tendency to read too much into each signal. However, May isn’t like this. She seems extroverted despite her social limitations, which is tragic, but common. She does have the instinctive ability to see the cues, but she also disregards them.

How about the ‘fun’ scale? This is not a fun movie, but there are certain parts, which are funny.