Megalomaniac (2022)

Director: Karim Ouelhaj

Year: 2022

Genre: Horror

Summary: Megalomaniac questions the invisible line between victim and executioner and how that line is crossed. A film about the weight of patriarchy and the illusion of Manichaeism (a former major world religion that taught an elaborate dualistic cosmology describing the struggle between a good, spiritual world of light, and an evil, material world of darkness).

4/5 Pineapples

Review:

Megalomaniac: A person who is obsessed with their own power.

In this story, every man fits that description...

_

It's been awhile! And, not only since I've written in this blog, but since I have watched a film that I felt I had things to say about that no one else was saying. And those two things have kind of become mutually exclusive.

I tried looking up reviews about this film, but not many people are deep diving into this one, and the few that are, aren't discussing the things I was most curious about.

I feel that people are truly overlooking the complex messages that are meticulously placed in all the nuance of the slow-burn middle portion of this story. I think if you watched this and found it “boring” or “unoriginal” then you missed a lot of the depth in the script and the metaphors that are being overshadowed by the gore. And, lastly, I think if you felt like it "could have been gorier"… then, you’re probably not a woman.

I know very few of you are reading this BEFORE watching, so I'll try to describe the story, and hit the major bullet points without rambling too much. But if you've read anything from my blog previously, you know that almost nothing in the movies I enjoy mean just nothing. Everything is purposeful and thoughtful, and therefore, the details need to be analyzed and addressed for us to fully understand and appreciate the story for what it wholly is.

Here are the basics: This is a Belgium horror film that's trailer initially premiered at the 2022 Fantasia Film Festival before it was released in limited theatres in September of 2023. If you haven't seen it yet and are curious to see it now, it's currently streaming on Shudder.

The spoiler-free synopsis is that we are following Martha, our main character (played by Eline Schumacher), and Félix, our supporting lead (played by Benjamin Ramon) who are the children of the "Butcher of Mons," a notorious Belgian serial killer from the 1990s. "The Butcher of Mons" is known for leaving trash bags of female body parts along miscellaneous highways and was never tracked down before he mysteriously disappeared. We, as the audience, know that The Butcher eventually died, which is why his killing sprees came to a halt, but not before he groomed his prodigal son into the family business.

(All of this is pretty easy to swallow right now, but I wanted to give a trigger warning that we're approaching content involving sexual assault, rape, childbirth, and overall, general violence against women, as well as spoiler territory. You've been warned.)

We see The Butcher over a woman giving birth in the basement of a dilapidated Victorian-era mansion. Based off the environment alone, I think it's safe to say she's one of The Butcher's victims, not his beloved wife. Some reviewers described her as a victim who happened to be pregnant, but we have no proof that she wasn't a victim whom The Butcher raped and held hostage. Just saying.

We see this badly battered woman give birth, The Butcher take the baby, and hand the infant, Martha, off to a young boy, who we can presume is Félix.

Jumping forward in time, Félix has taken over the family legacy. Martha spends her time laying low in their gigantic, deteriorating home. She's only allowed out for work as a cleaner in a warehouse, where she is harassed, violently assaulted, and eventually raped. Her boss is aware of these happenings, and clearly feels remorse, but for whatever reason chooses to standby and do nothing. This enables her coworkers to attack Martha numerous times over the course of months.

Martha, who is consistently picked on for her weight, and whose brother feeds her medicine for her thyroid health, tries to conceal a growing belly with medical wrap. Whether it's because of the fear of getting heavier when weight is already a concern for her and she truly doesn't know until it's too late, or whether it's full on denial, we don't know. But we establish, via signs of morning sickness and Martha's eventual admittance to a social worker (that stops by monthly), that Martha is in fact pregnant.

Martha's character is docile and troubled, seemingly tiptoeing around all the men in her life. She's our main character, but she's merely an inhabitant or "supporting lead" of the world her brother meticulously maintains and heavy handedly rules over. She's simply existing in the story he orchestrates and writes for her. In other words, it's a man's world, and Martha's just living in it.

So we, of course, follow in her descent into madness, as she struggles to fully understand her role in, not only the family, but society as a whole - never fully grasping why she, or any woman for that matter, is treated the way she is.

In this descent, Martha watches a version of herself walk about the house and even interact with Félix. I speculate that the reason Martha sees a secondary version, or twin, of herself is because she feels detached and has even disassociated from her own body. And I think that’s due to her environment at home, being treated as a burden, maid, or secondary citizen, as well as her rape trauma.

Throughout Martha's madness, we also are confronted with lurking, crawling black creatures that emerge in Martha's moments of loneliness. And I think these are souls of those murdered by her father and brother, and/or an embodiment of guilt for being a cause or contributor to what happened to those souls.

At some point, in the slow-burn middle portion of this story that every review and critic seems to hate so much, Martha, who is desperately lonely, asks her brother for one of his victims, to keep as a pet. He at first relents, to which she says, "Dad would have let me have one." His response is something along the lines of, "I'm not dad. Is that clear?"

We see some time later that Félix does in fact bring her an innocent woman to keep chained to a radiator by the neck adjacent to their dining room. After violently removing the woman's tongue, Félix proceeds to explain to Martha that she's going to have to "feed it and take care of it now."

Félix, who is actively murdering, mutilating, and capturing women in the same way his father did, does not believe he is, nor does he personally intend to be, anything like his father. That's evident in him stating he isn't their dad while shortly thereafter mirroring his father's behavior.

I feel like I'm mansplaining at this point - but I swear, I looked, and no one else seems to be aware of or making these parallels.

Martha, who is a victim herself, doesn’t realize she’s perpetuating the negative and harmful thoughts and practices, that she's learned via her experience with the men in her life, onto other women. And we see that fact play out in how she seemingly wants to love and care for her "pet" by bathing and feeding the woman, while simultaneously expressing a quiet, verbal rage that perpetuates those learned negative stigmas about women onto said "pet." Martha's actively bathing the woman or spoon-feeding her while talking down to her and bullying her. She's essentially regurgitating the things her brother and the rapists have said to or about her and other women. It could also be said that Martha's regurgitating the things that have been learned and eluded to in anyone's inaction to express otherwise. I think her verbal attacks against the pet she wanted and "cares for" depicts how Martha may want better for herself and the world, but she doesn't know any better or different to become better or to change the world. This is exactly how generational trauma, in real life, builds and continues to repeat itself in a vicious cycle.

Martha's victim does manage to escape one day, when the social worker drops by for an unannounced visit while Martha is still at work. The social worker finds the victim tied up, proceeds to cut her out of her chains, but is unfortunately captured by Félix after the victim manages to book it out the front door. We watch as Martha's "pet" makes it a great distance away, but come to learn that, unfortunately, Félix and Martha live in the middle of nowhere, where beyond the home is mostly vast open plain. So, Félix manages to recapture the woman with little to no effort.

While Félix is out wrangling their victim, Martha has come home to find the social worker chained up in her pet's place. Martha proceeds to unleash her wrath onto the social worker, once again verbally projecting those violent thoughts and ideologies about women onto another innocent woman, with the help of a mallet numerous times to the social worker's head.

This story ends with Martha inviting her two coworkers/rapists, as well as her boss, to dinner at her and Félix's home for what she tells them will be a "surprise announcement." Félix, at this point, has been made aware of the attacks and the pregnancy, and opts in to lend a hand in the surprise dinner.

At dinner, Martha announces to her rapists and her boss that she's pregnant. She states that the father could be either of her coworkers, though it's more likely the one that doesn't prefer sodomy, and then holds the boss accountable for enabling the attacks by pointing out that the baby will have a cliché, sick Uncle. Then, she looks over to Félix to ask when the drugs they spiked the food with will kick in.

Terrified over the circumstance they find themselves in, the three predators begin to scramble around the house, but are one by one falling impaired. Félix chases after them to bring them all to their deserved, brutal end. Meanwhile, Martha has started experiencing contractions.

As she goes into labor, she posts up on the living room sofa, behind which her "pet" cowers and looks over Martha's shoulder. After the bloodbath of all three men is sorted upstairs, Félix joins Martha with their pet and the baby she's holding; the portrait of one big, happy family.

But, we close the story with a fade into black and back out again inside a small, closed-off and unused room, as a black creature that resembles their father claws his way out of a mound of dirt.

I think this closing scene could be a portrayal of how his legacy is being reborn through them as his son carries out his murders and his daughter is now a product of those behaviors and therefore projecting and propelling those traits into another generation.

Ultimately, I think this is a really grotesque and disturbing portrayal of the effect of toxic masculinity, male pride, generational trauma, and the ripple effects those things can have - even on the people it’s victimizing. I was seeing some reviews that stated this movie wasn't doing anything original, but I can't place another movie that says all of those things at once, let alone in the way that Megalomaniac has said them. So, I'm not sure if those points were missed, people didn't care for said points, or they feel other stories have said the same thing, but I'd love to know what those films are if that's the case and what your argument is if you have a different opinion on the things I've shared today.

I deduct a pineapple for the transitions that make the film feel like it was made for French cable (which would be WILD considering the content). I'd also never choose to watch this again unless someone who hadn't seen it wanted to watch it with me. This isn't one you go back to for a good time.

If you made it this far and still haven't seen Megalomaniac, or have seen it and want more like it, definitely check out When Evil Lurks and Birth/Rebirth. These movies carry the same gritty, violent energy. And, all movies discussed in this analysis are available on Shudder right now.

Thanks for reading! And, until next time, happy watching!