May

Painfully shy and neurotically repressed young May (Angela Bettis) resorts to grisly violence when her precarious life falls apart. Writer/director Lucky McKee’s grungy, repellent little film is loaded with film-school references (the press materials directly invoke Carrie and Frankenstein, but there are others, as well), and it comes off like the insolent posing of a college smart aleck who gets off on shocking the fuddy-duddies. Bettis’ twitchy overacting makes her character overbearing and annoying from the very beginning. Only Jeremy Sisto as the object of May’s affection (at first unwitting, then cautiously interested and finally disgusted) escapes McKee’s heavy-handed direction; less fortunate are Anna Faris as May’s co-worker and Nichole Hiltz as May’s rival for Faris’ affections.