Film Analysis – The Actress Gets Outshone by Kate Hudson in Bizarre Horror
There are moments in the unveiled low-budget shocker Shell that would make it seem like a giddy tipsy kitschy gem if described in isolation. Imagine the scene where Kate Hudson's seductive health guru makes Elisabeth Moss to masturbate with a large sex toy while making her stare into a reflective surface. Moreover, a initial scene starring former performer Elizabeth Berkley sadly hacking off growths that have grown on her body before being murdered by a hooded assailant. Subsequently, Hudson presents an refined meal of her discarded skin to eager diners. Plus, Kaia Gerber transforms into a giant lobster...
If only Shell was as wildly entertaining as the summaries imply, but there's something strangely dull about it, with actor-turned-director Max Minghella finding it hard to deliver the excessive delights that something as ridiculous as this so clearly requires. The purpose remains unclear what or why Shell is and the target viewers, a low-budget experiment with few attractions for those who didn't participate in the filmmaking, feeling even less necessary given its unfortunate resemblance to The Substance. Each highlight an Los Angeles star striving to get the roles and recognition she feels entitled to in a ruthless field, unjustly judged for her appearance who is then lured by a transformative treatment that provides instant rewards but has horrifying side effects.
Though Fargeat's version hadn't debuted last year at Cannes, four months before Minghella's was unveiled at the Toronto film festival, the parallel would still not be flattering. Although I was not a particular fan of The Substance (a flashily produced, too drawn-out and hollow act of deliberate offense mildly saved by a stellar acting) it had an unmistakable memorability, swiftly attaining its rightful spot within the entertainment world (expect it to be one of the most parodied films in next year's Scary Movie 6). Shell has about the same level of depth to its and-then-what commentary (beauty standards for women are extremely harsh!), but it doesn't equal its exaggerated grotesquery, the film in the end recalling the kind of no-budget rip-off that would have come after The Substance to the rental shop back in the day (the lesser counterpart, the knock-off etc).
The film is oddly headlined by Moss, an actress not known for her humor, miscast in a role that requires someone more eager to lean into the silliness of the genre. She collaborated 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 eager for her to star that he decided to adjust for her being visibly six months pregnant, cue the star being awkwardly covered in a lot of bulky jackets and outerwear. As an uncertain star seeking to fight her path into Hollywood with the help of a crustaceous skin routine, she might not really convince, but as the slithering 68-year-old CEO of a hazardous beauty brand, Hudson is in far greater control.
The actor, who remains a consistently overlooked talent, is again a joy to watch, excelling at a specifically LA brand of insincere authenticity backed up by something genuinely sinister and it's in her all-too-brief scenes that we see what the film might have achieved. Matched with a more fitting sparring partner and a more incisive script, the film could have unfolded like a deliriously nasty cross between a mid-century women's drama and an 1980s monster movie, something Death Becomes Her did so wonderfully well.
But the script, from Jack Stanley, who also wrote the similarly limp action thriller Lou, is never as biting or as intelligent as it could be, mockery kept to its most obvious (the ending hinging on the use of an NDA is more amusing in concept than execution). Minghella doesn't seem sure in what he's really trying to create, his film as simply, lethargically directed as a TV drama with an similarly poor music. If he's trying to do a self-aware carbon copy of a bottom shelf VHS horror, then he hasn't pushed hard enough into conscious mimicry to convince the audience. Shell should take us all the way over the edge, but it's too scared to take the plunge.
Shell is up for hire digitally in the US, in Australia on 30 October and in the UK on 7 November
