In 2002, a small horror film came out that combined a simple outsider story with new horrific effects and a creepy yet identifiable heroine. May was the film, and Angela Bettis portrayed her with a doll-like innocence and a childlike taste for blood, if it can be believed.

May is a warped young woman who has a deep attachment to a doll in a glass case, given to her by her mother. May grows up alone and rejected, relying on the doll for her seemingly one-sided conversations. May resembles a doll herself, her forehead wide and looming over her big eyes and delicate frame. It’s quite unnerving how sweet and normal May appears on the outside, despite her quirks, but holding back an uncontrollable psychotic streak that bubbles below the surface.

When she meets Adam (Jeremy Sisto), a novice horror filmmaker in the style of Dario Argento, she believes that he is like her, fascinated by the beauty of blood and human depravities. When Adam asks her what she thinks of his short film, where a happy picnic turns sinister as the girl eats the boy in a passion of cannibalism, May replies "It was sweet... I don't think she could've got his finger off in one bite, though. That part seemed a little farfetched." Adam is perturbed by May’s oddness, but goes with it, seeing her as intriguing and captivating, his own little Gothic doll. Later, during foreplay, May bites Adam’s lip hard enough to bleed, and when he gets pissed, she says, "I thought that’s what you liked. Like in your movie . . . I thought you liked weird." "Not that weird." Clearly, Adam is a poseur who likes blood and gore, but cannot handle the real thing when it comes to him.

The film progresses as May is rejected by Adam, and she grows more and more demented in her search for love and companionship. She gets a job at a pet clinic and is pursued by a free-thinking lesbian named Polly (Anna Faris), but when May feels betrayed by Polly’s polyamorous affairs, it pushes her more to the edge. One particular scene that is uncomfortable and disturbing to watch is when May takes a volunteer job at a school for blind children. She brings her treasured doll in its glass case to "show" to the kids, who want to touch the doll. The following is unsettling to watch, and gives the audience a troubling feeling of what May will do next.

It’s a fantastic low-budget horror film that came and went quickly. Recently horror films have gone the route of shocking audiences with gruesome displays of violence mixed in with titillating scenes of naked girls and bodily mutilations. A film like this is more psychologically chilling than gruesome (despite a few shocking scenes). Bettis does an excellent job, embodying May and really expressive while standing still with a placid good-girl smile. One reviewer from IMDB commented that "She very much reminded me of a female Travis Bickle. She has a longing for what she can not have and is dealing with it the only way she knows how." It would be remarkable if May achieved a cult status and was recognized as one of the few recent horror films to be really terrifying and disturbing.

Melissa Silvestri is a New York-based writer who has been published by Venus, Bust, The Ticker, and The Simon.com. She is the editor of a zine, Black Mary, which is distributed by Quimby's Bookstore in Chicago. She practices ballet and make old-fashioned mix tapes in her spare time.