Directed by: Jonathan Millot and Cary Murnion
Notable cast: Lulu Wilson, Kevin James, Joel McHale, Amanda
Brugel
“There was a little girl, who had a little curl, right in
the middle of her forehead. When she was good, she was very good indeed, but
when she was bad she was horrid.” So goes the Longfellow poem, and so says
Becky’s creepy childhood doll almost by means of warning. Becky is the sophomore
effort by directors Millot and Murnion (following 2014’s excellent child-zombie
comedy Cooties) and it is a wholly different beast. In turns both brilliant
and exhilarating while a little shaky and muddled, this film is a brisk entertaining
horror-thriller that knocks on the door of excellence, though unfortunately
will have to settle for just being good.
The eponymous Becky is a very angry young girl. Her mother
recently passed and she’s furious that her father has already started dating
again. Lulu Wilson (one of this film era’s multiple working child horror stars)
and Joel McHale (the famously sarcastic
comedian playing wonderfully against type as a very genuine, loving parent)
have an interesting, extremely believable chemistry. A really astonishing feat given
that everything we see is a parental relationship in free fall. McHale’s Jeff
is almost too understanding and it allows Becky to walk all over him. They’re
spending a weekend in their summer cabin, along with Jeff’s new girlfriend and
her son, a fact that enrages Becky. She storms off to be alone in the woods
behind the house, which is why she’s luckily out of Dodge when a group of escaped
convicts invade, led by the Nazi Dominick.