Film Analysis – The Actress Gets Outshone by Kate Hudson in Bizarre Horror
There are moments in the dumped low-budget shocker Shell that would make it seem like a frivolous five-wines-in cult favorite if described in isolation. Envision the segment where Kate Hudson's vampy wellness CEO forces her co-star to operate a enormous device while forcing her to look into a mirror. Moreover, a cold open highlighting former performer Elizabeth Berkley sadly removing shells that have developed on her body before being murdered by a hooded assailant. Subsequently, Hudson presents an refined meal of her discarded skin to enthused diners. Furthermore, Kaia Gerber transforms into a enormous crustacean...
If only Shell was as wildly entertaining as that all makes it sound, but there's something curiously lifeless about it, with star turned helmer Max Minghella finding it hard to deliver the luridly indulgent pleasures that something as ridiculous as this so obviously needs. It's never quite obvious what or why Shell is and who it might be for, a inexpensive endeavor with minimal appeal for those who had no role in the project, feeling even less necessary given its unfortunate resemblance to The Substance. The two center on an LA actor fighting to get the roles and recognition she believes is her due in a harsh business, unjustly judged for her looks who is then tempted by a transformative treatment that grants immediate benefits but has horrifying side effects.
Even if Fargeat's version hadn't debuted last year at Cannes, preceding Minghella's made its bow at the Toronto film festival, the contrast would still not be favorable. Although I was not a huge admirer of The Substance (a garishly made, too drawn-out and hollow act of provocation partially redeemed by a killer lead performance) it had an clear lasting power, swiftly attaining its deserved place 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 predictable message (beauty standards for women are extremely harsh!), but it can't match its exaggerated grotesquery, the film in the end recalling the kind of cheap imitation that would have trailed The Substance to the video store back in the day (the lesser counterpart, the knock-off etc).
It's strangely led by Moss, an performer not known for her lightness, wrongly placed in a role that needs someone more ready to dive into the ridiculousness of the genre. She collaborated with Minghella on The Handmaid's Tale (one can comprehend why they both might crave a break from that show's unrelenting bleakness), 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 big hoodies and outerwear. As an insecure actor seeking to fight her path into Hollywood with the help of a exoskeleton-inspired treatment, she might not really convince, but as the sleek 68-year-old CEO of a hazardous beauty brand, Hudson is in significantly better form.
The actor, who remains a consistently overlooked talent, is again a delight to watch, excelling at a particular West Coast variety of faux-earnest fakeness underscored by something genuinely sinister and it's in her all-too-brief scenes that we see what the film could have been. Coupled with a more suitable sparring partner and a more incisive script, the film could have played like a wildly vicious cross between a mid-century women's drama and an 80s creature feature, something Death Becomes Her did so exceptionally.
But the script, from Jack Stanley, who also wrote the equally weak action thriller Lou, is never as acidic or as smart as it might have been, social commentary kept to its most blatant (the climax hinging on the use of an NDA is more humorous in theory than execution). Minghella doesn't seem confident in what he's really trying to create, his film as plainly, ploddingly shot as a TV drama with an similarly poor score. If he's trying to do a self-aware direct imitation of a low-rent tape fright, then he hasn't taken it sufficiently into studied pastiche to make it believable. Shell should take us all the way to the brink, but it's too fearful to commit fully.
Shell is available to rent via streaming in the US, in Australia on 30 October and in the UK on 7 November
