Film Analysis – Elisabeth Moss Gets Outshone by Kate Hudson in Bizarre Horror
There are sequences in the dumped schlock horror Shell that could paint it as like a frivolous inebriated cult favorite if described in isolation. Imagine the segment where Kate Hudson's seductive wellness CEO makes Elisabeth Moss to masturbate with a enormous device while making her stare into a mirror. There's also, a abrupt beginning highlighting former dancer Elizabeth Berkley emotionally hacking off growths that have appeared on her body before being murdered by a masked killer. Subsequently, Hudson serves an sophisticated feast of her shed epidermis to excited guests. And, Kaia Gerber turns into a enormous crustacean...
If only Shell was as hilariously enjoyable as the summaries imply, but there's something oddly flat about it, with actor-turned-director Max Minghella having difficulty to deliver the over-the-top thrills that something as absurd as this so obviously needs. The purpose remains unclear what or why Shell is and the target viewers, a low-budget experiment with minimal appeal for those who weren't involved in the project, feeling even less necessary given its unlucky likeness to The Substance. Both highlight an Los Angeles star striving to get the jobs and fame she thinks she deserves in a harsh business, unfairly critiqued for her looks who is then seduced by a revolutionary process that grants immediate benefits but has horrifying side effects.
Even if Fargeat's version hadn't premiered last year at Cannes, preceding Minghella's was shown at the Toronto film festival, the contrast would still not be favorable. Although I was not a big enthusiast of The Substance (a gaudily crafted, too drawn-out and empty act of shock value mildly saved by a stellar acting) it had an undeniable stickiness, easily finding its appropriate niche within the entertainment world (expect it to be one of the most satirized features in next year's Scary Movie 6). Shell has about the same degree of insight to its and-then-what commentary (expectations for women's looks are unreasonably brutal!), but it doesn't equal its over-the-top body horror, the film ultimately resembling the kind of no-budget rip-off that would have come after The Substance to the VHS outlet back in the day (the inferior sequel, the budget version etc).
It's strangely led by Moss, an actress not known for her humor, miscast in a role that requires someone more eager to dive into the ridiculousness of the subject matter. She worked with Minghella on The Handmaid's Tale (one can see why they both might long for a break from that show's punishing grimness), and he was so determined for her to lead that he decided to work around her being noticeably six months pregnant, cue the star being awkwardly covered in a lot of bulky jackets and jackets. As an self-doubting performer seeking to push her entry into Hollywood with the help of a shell-based beauty regimen, she might not really persuade, but as the sleek 68-year-old CEO of a dangerous beauty brand, Hudson is in significantly better form.
The actor, who remains a consistently overlooked talent, is again a delight to watch, perfecting a specifically LA brand of faux-earnest fakeness underscored by something truly menacing and it's in her regrettably short scenes that we see what the film had the potential to become. Paired with a more comfortable opponent and a wittier script, the film could have come across like a feverishly mean cross between a 1950s female melodrama and an decade-old beast flick, something Death Becomes Her did so exceptionally.
But the script, from Jack Stanley, who also wrote the similarly limp action thriller Lou, is never as biting or as clever as it could be, satire kept to its most obvious (the ending hinging on the use of an NDA is more humorous in idea than execution). Minghella doesn't seem confident in what he's really trying to create, his film as bluntly, ploddingly shot as a daytime soap with an similarly poor music. If he's trying to do a knowing carbon copy of a low-rent tape fright, then he hasn't gone far enough into conscious mimicry to make it believable. Shell should take us all the way over the edge, but it's too afraid to take the plunge.
Shell is up for hire via streaming in the US, in Australia on 30 October and in the UK on 7 November
