An interesting note about
Sick Girl: This
episode was originally intended to be directed by Roger Corman.
However, he pulled out, and thus we ended up with Lucky McKee. As
with William Malone, McKee is someone whose work I'm not familiar
with, but McKee shows far more capability as a director than Malone
did. This episode is much heavier on laughs than on horror, but I’m
not complaining. Still, I do find myself curious how Corman's style
would have worked for this episode. My suspicion is it was
originally intended to be fun trash, rather than the somewhat
classier black comedy we ended up with.
The main character is a
lesbian entomologist named Ida Teeter (Angela Bettis), who is growing
increasingly lonely as she's unable to find a partner who isn't
creeped out by the pet insects she keeps around her apartment. Ida
notices an attractive girl named Misty (Erin Brown aka former
soft-core porn star Misty Mundae) hanging around the school, and asks
her out. They go on a date, and lightning strikes, their
personalities clicking perfectly. I’m a bit unclear on Misty’s
role, as she initially seems to be a student at the school (albeit
not in Ida’s class), but later in the episode seems to have no
responsibilities and can fall into the role of a homemaker for Ida.
At around the same time
Ida approaches Misty, she also receives a package containing a
mysterious insect that she can’t identify, despite her best
efforts. There's no indication of who sent the bug, but Ida is still
fascinated by it as an unusual specimen. The night Ida first brings
Misty home, the bug gets loose, sneaks around the apartment, and is
able to bite Misty undetected.
The episode then follows a
number of plot threads, but unlike the storyline of Fair
Haired Child, nothing feels extraneous. All
the developments are eventually paid off, and they interconnect, both
physically and thematically. There’s also symbolism dripping from
every scene, but this is a story where the overt works just fine.
The three main story lines
are: the insect, Ida’s relationship with Misty as Misty grows sick
and Ida cares for her, and dealings with Ida’s homophobic landlady,
Lana (Marcia Bennett). There are also some entertaining and
exposition-laden scenes with Ida’s co-worker Max (Jesse Hlubik),
whose a pervert who seems to relate to Ida in a “one of the guys”
sort of way. Over the course of the episode Misty grows aggressive
and increasingly insensitive, as Lana flips out over both the
presence of Ida’s pet insects, and the realization that Ida is a
lesbian.
The ending is the perfect
mixture of irony, humor, and horror. Ida discovers that Misty had
been infatuated with her since Ida was a student, who had studied
entomology under Misty’s homophobic father (the father is never
shown on-screen). Misty’s father sent the bug, which used a
strange toxin to control birds and mammals and hijack their
reproductive systems to make more of its own kind. He had hoped the
bug would infect Ida, causing Misty to reject her. He panics and
sends Ida detailed information on the bug when he (somehow) finds out
it bit Misty instead, but it’s too little too late.
Misty, under the bug’s
influence, frightens Lana into falling down the stairs to her death,
turns into a…bug…thing, kills Max, and infects Ida. It ends with
them blissfully pregnant, under the bug’s influence, and waiting to
give birth to broods of insects that will kill them both. The
inconvenience of dying no longer seems to be a major concern for
them.
I don’t want to comment
too much on the symbolism, beyond the obvious “homophobes see gay
people like insects.” I suspect more was intended, but some of
that could be me reading too much into it. The episode's real
strength, however, is in the leads. I get the feeling that this
episode was written to avoid the standard gay stereotypes of having
one partner be butch, as another was feminine. Instead, both
partners are shy, socially awkward, and with a healthy mixture of
masculine and feminine traits. The episode actually did the
impossible and wrote gay people as something other than walking
stereotypes. This shouldn't deserve a gold star, but sadly it kind
of does. That's how shitty our culture is.
The episode benefits from
good humor, some very talented and charismatic actors, and a director
whose work I now very much want to check out more of. Beyond that,
who doesn't love seeing a homophobe get her comeuppance? While it’s
not Cigarette Burns,
it’s one episode I have no qualms about recommending.
No comments:
Post a Comment