‘THE CLEANING LADY’ Is Uncomfortable Horror Incarnate
A wealthy, lonely woman befriends her horribly scarred cleaning lady to avoid the married man she’s been dating. Things go well. (THAT WAS A LIE)
Directed by: John Knautz (The Shrine)
Sometimes the gore and slashing in horror is really about cutting out the awful parts of ourselves.
Many will watch The Cleaning Lady and think:
“This is totally fucked up. Why is A doing this to B and C…why am I watching it?”
A look deeper and you realize just what our “victims” were doing to themselves or others to land in this horrid predicament in the first place. It’s subtle, but I pick up on these things because I’m a judgmental bastard.
Main “good girl” Alice (Alexis Kendra) is caught up and in love with Michael (Stelio Savante). A married man, who seems to truly love her but can’t leave his Wife because of his responsibilities to his son. Alice is young, beautiful and thriving. She has her whole life ahead of her, yet is obsessed with this relationship and her reliance on it.
Instead of leaving the situation (or even accepting it) she constantly talks about it. Like a badge of adversity she’s proud to wear. She actually goes to AA meetings to break away from her “disease”. She constantly calls her best friend and sponsor (no, seriously) Miranda (Keri Malone) to stop her from continuing to see him.
When her sponsor (Good lord, that’s over the top) fails to come to her aid on a lonely night, she turns to her newly hired cleaning lady Shelly (Rachel Alig) and asks her to stay over for dinner. She eventually finds a way to work her man problems into the conversation, ofcourse. This, despite the fact that she’s talking to a woman who’s cleaning her apartment for work, is horrendously scarred (we’re talking NOES remake Freddy Krueger level scars here people) and is sleeping in the garage of the apartment building she lives in.
That is, when she isn’t living in her Evil Dead cabin in the woods. Nah, it’s more like Jason’s shack in Friday the 13th: Part II.
Point is, on the surface Alice seems like such a nice lady. She offered this woman who looks and acts scary as hell her friendship, money, clothes and makeup.
Had she been truly interested in anything but herself however, she may have noticed this lady is currently grinding up mice in a blender to feed to a mysterious subject she has hidden in a shed. I’VE BEEN THERE A HUNDRED TIMES.
Make no mistake, the people who have personality flaws pay for it dearly in The Cleaning Lady. The opening scene alone had me gnarled up in my seat audibly yelling “Ew, that’s gross!” while smiling like a 10 year old playing with fart putty. There’s one particular torture scene with enough depraved creativity to make Hostel look like Dawson’s Creek but there is something more thoughtful at work here.
Sometimes people want so badly to be perceived as scarred victims, they get exactly what they wished for….and we do it to ourselves.
The Cleaning Lady is horrendous, creative and gnarly enough to be remembered. More than worth the watch. I don’t recommend eating a chicken pot pie while doing so. Bump up for a few scenes with slasher tendencies. 8/10
The Cleaning Lady is currently making it’s festival run and is currently showing at the Telluride Horror Show in Telluride, Colorado.
