Megalomaniac Review: A Stylistically Ambitious Yet Ultimately Bewildering Thriller!
Megalomaniac started promisingly enough. There were stylistic flourishes that brought a sort of frantic, zombie apocalypse style, ala 28 Days Later, to the slasher genre in a way that hooked me immediately. The eponymous bald avatar killer, the father figure in a killer trio family. He wears unracialized black camouflage, moving about in a menacing slow motion, shaking like a rabid dog with blood flying everywhere. These stand-alone images had their hooks in me to continue watching. But a bait and switch of expectations happened in the middle act in terms of who the lead character was and even what the genre of the film itself was turning into. Is Megalomaniac an edgy new slasher film or a ho-hum, action revenge film? It became the latter, which just left me flat and self-negated the energy and direction of the opening act. I was even holding out hope for a Hellraiser type ending where “The Megalomaniac” would intervene and actually do something of note rather than just be a non-entity. Perhaps there is a director’s cut that will use the bald killer? We shall see… But as it is, I was underwhelmed and felt misled by the premise. This film needed a Jason Vorhees jumping up out of the water moment and we never got it.
We start with title cards telling us about 15 garbage bags of women’s parts. 5 victims. October 1997 the linked murders of women, aged 21-47, stopped mysteriously. No one ever found the killer till today 20+ years later. These facts confusingly never become relevant later in any sense and in fact misdirect one into thinking they are ‘Based on a True Story’. After a quick examination of the real events referenced on Wikipedia as “The Butcher of Mons” was based on a real set of murders but instead we get a purely made-up, preposterous story about a lonely woman who has a protective killer brother who basically avenges all her social and mental shortcomings by killing anyone who offends her. In some cases, rightly, in other cases just because they hung around too long, and she and her brother are killers.
The bald Megalomaniac oversees a bloody woman give birth as a boy watches on. This had great style and mood. He stares at the boy as she gives birth. The woman has demon eyes and breathes as though she gave birth defiantly against her will. The Megalomaniac hands the boy the new child.
The opening sequence of slow-motion blood spittle is memorable, a little like the opening of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, without the abstraction, Led Zepplin, and was obviously shorter and with more blood instead of (oil?) Cool! I like it!
Now, 20-years-later and the young boy is a young gothic looking gender bending but fit young Frenchmen who sits in his car in an alleyway where he sees in his mind the naked Megalomaniac floating down in a shadowy imaginary reality, wide-eyed and in black camouflage. A woman walks by the car and the young killer bludgeons her and throws her in his car.
Cut-to a female janitor, later referenced as Martha (i.e., the baby that was given birth to moments earlier). She works a crappy job with even crappier coworkers who hint at wanting to sexually assault her. French courting.
Martha comes back to her oversized mansion (now I know it’s the baby from earlier!) She’s looking at sexy guys (or is it girls) online? She then literally pounds a pound cake before eating it. That night she has a brief nightmare about dancing bodies in the sewers of France. I wonder what Freud would say?
She comes to the young male goth killer from earlier (her brother) who also lives in the mansion. There’s someone in the house she suspects.
Their names are revealed as Martha (Eline Schumacher) and Felix (Benjamin Ramon) as they identify each other in dialogue. Felix feels she has eaten too much sugar and is paranoid. Felix then fantasizes (or actually?) kills a young woman he eyes at church. I was loving the French-Gothic style here. Then this goes full brutality with stabbing her in the throat and biting off her labia and spitting it out across the stockyards.
Martha then sees Felix as Megalomaniac in blackface and demon eyes. She runs upstairs. Is this just a fearful impression from the past? A ghost of victimhood’s past?
Back at work the courting continues from the other janitors. He apologizes for the last time. New tact: “do you have a boyfriend?” He calls her disgusting then kisses her and her boss listens on in horror and cowardice. He then rapes Martha right in the middle of her rounds. That was quick. Her boss feels terrible about it, having listened on and done nothing to stop it. Obviously, this was not about what she was fantasizing about. A cruel letdown.
She comes home and says she’ll do as Felix says. She is tired of problems. Felix is tired of her lies. He suspects something bad happened. She says she needs a bath as it was a very dirty day at work. Indeed!
Felix gives her thyroid and diabetes medicine (geez, does he want her to live forever?!) Martha then refuses to eat. Felix picks up on it. Martha then lies about being raped.
Felix kills another girl, randomly.
Martha confides that she wants a companion to Felix. Felix refuses. She then watches the whole scene again from upstairs literally watching herself get told she can’t have a companion. It’s oddly not as captivating as it sounds.
A newly assigned caseworker comes to visit Martha. Martha plays nice for now.
Felix captures a companion for her like a pet. He removes her tongue and chains her to the wall. Once alone, Martha washes her up and lays down the rules so as not to upset Felix. Martha calls her new pet friend Kitty.
The implication is that she’s a lesbian now subtly and wanted these girl’s attention online. Okay strand confirmed. It was girls earlier she wanted, so the rape by a man was extra degrading in that sense. However, given that this is allegedly “based on true events” about an unsolved crime, where is this story coming from exactly? Pure fiction, blaming unsolved murders on the sexually repressed lesbians is at once a bit conveniently pandering and a bit obtuse all at once.
Getting a bit lost, Martha is talking to herself about eating too much as she admires the thinness of her captive, Kitty. She tortures Kitty with feeding her against her will.
Soon we see Martha is fully pregnant, implying 9-months has transpired. Likely from the rape from her coworkers earlier. Note, even a killer like her wouldn’t abort her rape-baby. She has principles after all.
Martha does however squeeze the baby with gauze to fool Felix, but it doesn’t work. This was personally the most disturbing scene in the movie for me. Felix says he’ll help take care of the baby.
Felix starts to ravage Martha on the floor as Kitty watches in horror. It turns surreal with black ooze, the undulating sewer dancers, and a nice big snake. I feel this movie is subverting even the concept of her really being a lesbian but instead just denying she wants a big snake and gender bending man instead. Weird, French logic here. Also, the presumption keeps flirting with the idea that this is all in her head which would mean she’s just violently masturbating in front of Kitty while imagining the rest.
Martha wakes up and predictably like most of this movie, it was all in her mind. Kitty fails to escape while Martha is passed out on the floor.
Final mission time: Martha returns to work. She invites her rapist coworkers to dinner, and they accept. How cordial of both parties! Her kindness to them was very sad and honest in a depressing albeit ultimately deceptive way.
Meanwhile her social worker discovers Kitty chained to the wall and intercedes. Kitty gets away but the social worker is tied up by Felix. Kitty runs for it through a wind farm. Felix still catches her by car (still insisting Felix is not just in her head, eh?).
There’s a nice line: “You don’t think you’d eventually run into someone like me?! This is your fault!” Martha says to the social worker as she bludgeons her to death. Fair point.
Final Revenge Dinner: Martha confronts them all with her child from rape. They all deny it. Felix poisons the whole dinner. Martha starts to get sick and gives birth. The Megalomaniac returns for like 2-seconds from a dirt pile in an unused bedroom on the 2nd floor of the mansion. And that’s it. Nothing else.
Felix then stylistically albeit perfunctorily dispatches the rapist janitors. His protective instincts working overtime. A new baby emerges. That’s it. The End.
Megalomaniac Downers:
This movie loves blood without injury or logic. Pregnant women have blood all over her face and hair. Thus, defying the logic of natural pregnancies everywhere. And this Kitty is never shown to be injured but is randomly covered with blood and filth. This is a kind of stylistic cheat that brought me down and out of the story.
As mentioned earlier the switch of subgenres from slasher to revenge fantasy did not work for me. It might work for someone, but it didn’t work for me. It wasn’t subverting expectations, it was subverting your own premise and the slasher genre itself and even more unforgivingly, without getting away with it.
The characters overall felt disingenuous to themselves and to me as the viewer. “Characters all in my head” bore me to tears as a dated 2002-2014 type of trope that I haven’t liked since A Beautiful Mind. This sort of thing is pure artifice masquerading as high concept. It is not original nor executed with gravitas. Metaphorically it tastes like stale baguette, to put this in French terms which I hope it translates into French properly.
Megalomaniac Silver Living to the Downers:
The minimalist use of the Megalomaniac character as a metaphor has me perplexed. I liked the mystery of the character. I appreciate not telling us his, for the love of God, “ORIGIN STORY,” which is the most OVERUSED NARRATIVE DEVICE SINCE THE DREAM SEQUENCE, so I appreciated telling us nothing. But I did not appreciate that character not having at least a stronger tie-in at the end, taking a part in the spree of vengeance or the events of the climax. That was kind of unforgivable as they set him up beautifully to do something. Popping his head out of a dirt pile was anticlimactic to put it very mildly.
Megalomaniac Uppers:
I like the Megalomaniac character, the look, feel, impression. It was simply bungled in the final analysis. Like I said earlier, perhaps a director’s cut ending has the bald killer actually do something active in the end which might boost it a star or so.
Overall, the style of murders is energetic and unique with a near hit on the lore building front. But soon the plot just abandons what works about the mysterious opening act like a deadbeat dad. As the plot unfurls, to use a bowling metaphor: Megalomaniac is a promising launch turned slowly into a gutter ball. Literally a bald head in the dirt.
Directed by: Karim Ouelhaj
Written by: Karim Ouelhaj
Produced by: Karim Ouelhaj, Nicolas George, Florence Saâdi
Cinematography by: François Schmitt
Music by: Simon Fransquet, Gary Moonboots
Special Effects by: Thomas Coqu
Cast: Eline Schumacher, Benjamin Ramon, Hélène Moor, Wim Willaert, Pierre Nisse, Raphaële Bruneau
Year: 2022
Country: Belgium
Language: French (English Subtitles)
Colour: Colour
Runtime: 1h 58min
Studio: Les Films du Carré, Okayss Prod., Umedia, uFund
Distributor: Dark Star Pictures
