User reviews

I agree with most of the other 5-6-7 star reviews. Read those for an idea of what you're in for. But dang, that "soundtrack" is terrible. Rather than using music that elevate the scenes, the film forces us to listen to entire songs -wuth lyrics - at almost every turn, and those songs have little to do with what's happening on screen. Like the director took a demo tape from his buddy's garage band and said "Sure, this'll do". Really the weakest part of the movie.

I am not sure if this is a dark comedy, og a thriller? Its not a horror! The film gets more and more sick, to a point where you have to laugh. Its well made. The acting is okay. The music seems to be very loud compared to talking and other sounds.... I found it entertaining, and I still think about it, here two days after watching it :-)

The was a decent movie. An odd premise but the film maker made it work. This music in it is downright awful. It's laughable it is so bad. The musician must have been great friends with the producers. There no other explanation. And it's not just that it's bad but it is mixed way too high. This could have been higher rated but the music is just a rookie mistake.

I don't write a lot of reviews but this film gained a lot of publicity after some guy at Sundance walked out (or got kicked out) for complaining about the violence and misogyny in it. He was probably right to walk out, but did so for all the wrong reasons. I didn't find the movie particularly violent for the horror genre. What it was lacking was better writing and character development. So adding the review to give people a better idea of what they were getting, since it's presently sitting at an 8.5 with no other reviews.

The mother and kids of the family and even "the woman" were fairly well acted and developed, although I find it hard to believe in any teenagers these days that will just do whatever their father says. Unfortunately, the father, teacher, and some other small parts seemed to be more caricature than character. The fact that it was not working was obvious, although how much of it can be blamed on bad writing, bad acting, or bad directing may be debatable. Unfortunately, the father is in almost every scene, so this caricature becomes the centerpiece that the rest of the film revolves around.

There are some other problems with sound choices and some of the worst use of music I've heard in any film. Almost every time one of these alt-pop tunes came on all I could think was "Really? They're using this to set the mood?!" I think only once during the course of the film, did a song come on that I thought "Oh, this almost, sort of works". Most of these songs would probably be fine on their own, but didn't seem to fit the mood of the film at all.

In addition occasional bad directing, lighting, and editing choices left me not being able to see or understand what was happening at certain points in the film or understanding why they edited the same shots cutting back and forth at times. This is most obvious in the opening scenes where they are showing the girl raised by wolves. It's a pretty common theme that's been done dozens of times before. Yet here they spend too much time on it, without actually developing it at all. Just a lot of jumpy cuts going back and forth to state the obvious, to the point that I started fast forwarding to get to the credits and see if the film was actually going anywhere. The credits really shouldn't be more interesting than the opening scenes. I would have much rather seen more development on the father's character and what his motivations were in these opening scenes. We never really get any of that, and as I said earlier, he's pivotal to the way every other character acts and reacts during the course of the film. Other than those complaints, the overall technical aspects of the film were pretty professional for an indie film.

The biggest problem for me though, was lack of any kind of suspense buildup. Something that is ever present in the best of horror films, and usually at least some hint of, even in a mediocre horror film. I was never really left wondering what was going to happen next, things just happened and we watched, but didn't feel much of anything for the characters involved.

I respect the director's decision to do something a bit out there in terms of film norms these days, and the ending might give you a bit of a chuckle, if you hang in there that long, but in the end found it to be a rather low end mediocre movie, so 5 out of 10.

This is not a movie for all people. Well I was a bit tired when I started watching The Woman by the end of it I was wide awake and a little bit stunned. I'd definitely place this in a genre with the french movies Irreversible and Martyrs, horror with an underlying social message. Now I'm not going to get into that here as some have given this movie 1 and I'm not saying it is an epiphany or revelation but I see a lot in this movie even including the music choice as being relevant even though some have scorned it as simply bad and inappropriate. How you interpret the characters are portrayed is up to the viewer but they are acted quite well. For me the characters were symbolic in many aspects and this is a superior Horror, and horror it is. It certainly sucked me in and entrapped me in it's story. As a horror fan the large majority are predictable twaddle with people who can't run straight without falling over and generally panicking and making very bad decisions to further the plot. There were a few moments in The Woman I was approaching the feeling of - this wouldn't happen - but the good performances, underlying fear and intentionally off hand portrayal of sociopath tendencies by male lead kept me reeled tight to the story, and a story is what it is. For me I believe I 'got' this movie and i think it was well made and memorable.

I found the music way more disturbing than anything in the film. The levels of the music were way too loud compared to the rest of the sounds in the film. I really wanted to enjoy this but the music ruined it. Seems like the director owed someone a favor or they held his family captive unless he put this music in his movie.

Its funny that the first major notice this film got was because somebody stormed out of an early screening crying misogyny. Funny because The Woman in fact is a long way away from misogyny, in fact I'd almost be inclined to call it a feminist film. Its an account of an average American family going about their business, except for the fact that the father is a complete monster who one day brings home a feral woman from the woods, who he decides to educate. From the very start this is unusual stuff, with the titular woman hallucinating birth then slaughtering a wolf for food, and while not especially violent given its reputation some pretty heavy territory gets explored, domestic abuse, familial corruption and a visceral take on gender power conflict. The film is anchored in Sean Bridgers' performance as Chris Cleek, family man gone very, very wrong. He gives the character a constant menace, a smile, bright face and charming demeanour, a plastic outside so almost right, so not quite all there that it perfectly suggests his inner depravity, and in his depravity he is just as slick and even darkly humoured. The character is patriarchy at its most terrible extension, dedicated to control and dominance, assured of its utter superiority and quick to cruelty. It finds perfect match in the woman though, femininity in its most feral savagery. Pollyanna Mackintosh is wonderfully inhuman in the role, conveying sheer violent animalism through her body language and freakish guttural grunts and growling. The rest of the performances are strong stuff too, Angela Bettis as the meek wife of the piece, downtrodden to the point of barely having her own personality, Zach Rand as son Brian following in his fathers footsteps and Lauren Ashley Carter as daughter Peggy withdrawing into her own shell from the horror. Everyone gels well together, drawing the audience in so the punches hurt all the more. I won't go into too much of what occurs once the woman is imprisoned, but you can probably guess some of it, and the film does a great job in stirring up a sense of intense, boiling rage at the increasing dark events. The soundtrack is an important part of this, often using soft indie rock it works perfectly alongside the whitebread setting and in the way it underlines the travails of the children, but also makes a fine contrast to the nastier stuff. I must say there was almost nothing that I didn't care for in this one and it's by far the best US horror film I've seen in years. Lucky McKee directs with a sure hand, mixing jolting savagery with cruel, calculating drama and a few moments of affecting dreamlike melancholia, although the film does get somewhat melodramatic and the intense finale goes into feverish pulp territory slightly unsuited to the mostly just disturbing bulk of the film, things are always surely handled. Arguably the film could have rounded things out better, developing its themes into something more intellectually satisfying than simply bloody violence (though the bloody violence is pretty darned satisfying) but its a minor quibble really. 9/10, really great stuff.

Not at all what I expected. It was rather intense at many different points throughout and the characters always had my full attention. A nice tight script, albeit with some lose ends that left me wondering why? But overall this is a really good film, if you don't mind some graphic scenes.

first , iam surprised that not one reviewer yet mentioned that this is part two of a trilogy by ketchum...the first being a book a cant remember the title of off hand , and the second being a low budget horror flick called the off spring that came out a few years ago...i will say that to really gain insight and understand this movie you need to watch the cheese fest which is the offspring first...jack ketchum plays the alcoholic sheriff in that , and it s pretty bad , but will explain a lot...i wont spoil the offspring for you , just go and watch it ...i will say that the woman is from a tribe of cannibalistic children that were abandoned by their parents when they died off some time ago , and that ,movie/book, all takes place on the east coast islands around cape cod somewhere...the woman starts off right where off spring left off..thats why the beginning probably makes little sense to most viewers... I'm puzzled that the amount of disgust this movie generated , its not all that gory, no really bad or graphic rape scenes at all, its all left to your imagination...thats the scary part..i think movies like the saw series have no value and are mindless senseless waste of film...this movie however , has substance and tells a twisted story ...also worth mentioning is the lost , one of the greatest films I've seen in a long time...see it if you enjoyed this..

I loved the mix of upbeat music with the downbeat story. It's sort of like great jazz on film, but here it's rock and horror. This film captures some pretty unique craziness. I enjoyed the film. If you love horror films, I'd say definitely don't miss this one!

7.5/10.

The only positive thing i can say is all the actors involved are great and did their best considering the director and his execution of the material. Pollyanna McIntosh and Angela Bettis were especially excellent and were the only reason to finish watching. I am not troubled by disturbing themes and visuals as long as they aren't trite or gratuitous. The use of music was terrible, the camera-work at times seemed amateurish, and nothing rang true like something like this could actually happen. I guess i'm not a McKee fan. 'Red' with Brian Cox was excellent though but i'm uncertain how much of his talent is in the final product.

I have been wanting to watch this for quite awhile and finally got around to watching it and am impressed. It's something I haven't seen used before and thought it was done properly. Most of the stuff in it was of course demeaning to women as the Father is a Misogynist. Some might find this disturbing as I found the violence towards women to be a little much. Although it is disturbing it is a pretty good movie with some revenge behind it. I would recommend giving this movie a watch as it is something not commonly used in movies and done very well. I give The Woman a 7 out of 10.

~Joe

The description may sound like this man who abducts this wild girl from a nearby forest to attempt to change her primitive behaviour, is a hero... but nothing could be further from the truth. He already beats his wife black and blue, has impregnated his oldest daughter, and encourages his mental case son to engage in psychopathic behaviour. And who knows what fate lies in store for his smallest girl. The bloke is nothing but a misogynistic lunatic, and just sees this 'savage' as someone else to control and abuse. She however, may be made of sterner stuff than his usual crowd...

It's a very well made film, which constantly has you guessing as to what level of degradation this outwardly respectable lawyer will put his family and his captive through next. Whatever you may think, chances are it is worse.

Surely not as horrific though, as the dreadful background songs we have to listen to throughout. If the director has a son who's started a band in his garage, was it really necessary to include their screeching in his flick? Sometimes it's best to tell your kid that they've got NO TALENT for something they're passionate about... and leave them to find their true calling. Maybe something to do with shelf-stacking.

There is something lacking at the centre too, which would make this truly compelling... Could it be the endless parade of torture subtracts from the human element, and ends up damaging the movie as a whole? Possibly. Or perhaps it's Brandon Gerald Fuller's too-successful performance as the deranged patriarch. Sometimes, I couldn't concentrate on the goings-on... I wanted to slap him so badly. A job well done, I guess. Too well done... 5/10

I went into this movie expecting the worst but came out pleasantly surprised. With all of the controversy regarding this film when that guy walked out almost made me wonder if he was planted. I mean it really wasn't all that gory and certaining not the most disturbing movie out there.

Another reason why I thought this movie was going to be worse was Jack Ketchum's "The Girl Next Door" one of the most disturbing movies I have ever seen that still makes me feel uncomfortable thinking about it even though I viewed it almost a year ago. That would be a movie I would totally understand why someone would freak out, in some ways I wish I had never seen that movie. Since "The Woman" was co-written by Jack Ketchum, I expected it to be along the same lines.

To get on with the review, I truly enjoyed this film. I have watch many (too many lol) horror films and to find one that is unique as well as well filmed is a rarity. This movie, contrary to popular belief is not all that violent or gory. Yes, there are scenes with abuse of a poor woman but it's really nothing you haven't seen before.

This was such a strange story as well. A seemingly perfect family, with its homemaker wife, successful lawyer husband, son and daughter living out what seems to be the "Leave it to Beaver" lifestyle. As the story goes on you learn that the father is seriously dysfunctional and drags his family down with him by capturing a wild woman and forcing the family to participate in her torture.

Strange, yet wonderfully filmed. I enjoyed this movie. It was also nice to be able to watch something so original and unique.

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This well-made horror films starts off as a disquietening and disturbing tale of female suppression and toxic, fascistoid male dominance till it culminates in a wildly gory and shocking finale with some twists and an ambiguous open ending.

I have just watched this movie and felt that it was my duty to review it so that others will not be as unfortunate as me and have to watch this garbage, this is just a waste of time.

The movie had a relatively low budget but thats no excuse for this movie. I've seen films with virtually no budget that manage to hold the attention better than this. The acting is abysmal. As I said before I like bad films, but the cast here are both overacting and underacting at the same time. The "special effects" are just god awful and quite embarrassing. Its not even funny in a bad way.

I hate that there's nothing positive to say about this, and don't believe the rest of the reviews where they say its touching and poignant. Its not. Its just crap