The Best Horror Movie You've Never Seen Is Finally Getting A Blu-Ray Release In The United States

Horror movies are wonderfully primal things. They can be giddy experiences packed with jump scares, slow burns drenched in an atmosphere of dread, deeply unsettling ordeals that scar the consciousness, or, in rare cases, all of these things and more in remarkably equal measure. And when fans of the genre run across a film that colors ecstatically outside of the lines, that transgresses in a way no other horror film has dared to transgress before, they have a tendency to fall headlong in love.

I don't know exactly when I got bitten by the horror movie bug, but, like many Generation X fright fans, I can certainly credit Denis Gifford's coffee table book "A Pictorial History of Horror Movies" with inflaming my ardor. I spent countless hours poring over those glossy pages of stills and lobby cards that covered everything from silent era classics like "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari" to the shockingly gory Hammer horror films of the 1970s. I wanted to devour all of these movies, and I didn't care if a big chunk of them were shot in black-and-white. The monsters, the eerily beautiful production design, and, yes, the copious amounts of blood had me hooked. At this early stage in my life, it was all discovery.

Horror fans are forever chasing that sense of discovery. They yearn for the high of those early Universal monster movies, George A. Romero's zombie masterpieces, and visceral found-footage terror of "The Blair Witch Project." They want to get knocked sideways by the next "The Evil Dead," "Re-Animator," or "In My Skin" — and it's not strictly for personal gratification. For all movie lovers, but especially horror aficionados, there is nothing better than recommending a film to a friend or acquaintance that you know is going to blow their mind. And if you're lucky, you get to watch it with them as it works its twisted magic.

So I'm thrilled that one of the most exhilaratingly original horror movies of the 21st century is about to get thrust back into the cinephile discourse via its first-ever Region 1 Blu-ray release. It's time to unleash Lucky Mckee's "May" on unsuspecting viewers once again.

If there's a horror fanatic in your life, there's a decent chance you've heard the Good News about Lucky McKee's "May." The film caused a minor stir at the 2002 Sundance Film Festival and received a number of enthusiastic reviews from prominent critics (including a four-star rave from Roger Ebert), but Lionsgate gave it a tepid, weakly promoted release in February 2003. "May" found a small cult following when it hit DVD later that year, but social media, which could've turned it into a buzzy sensation, was virtually non-existent at the time. You had to already be in the know (i.e. reading movie-buff-catering websites like Ain't It Cool News, The A.V. Club, and Bloody-Disgusting) to be in the market for McKee's inventive, tender-terrifying yarn.

If this is the first you've heard of "May," I highly recommend going in as cold as possible. A brilliant Angela Bettis stars as the titular character, a socially awkward young woman who endured a difficult childhood due to children teasing her for her lazy eye. The adult May works at a veterinary clinic and begins coming out of her shell when she meets a handsome aspiring filmmaker named Adam (Jeremy Sisto), but she becomes unnervingly attached to him and strangely enamored of his hands. There's a cringe factor at play here, but McKee, who also wrote the screenplay, masterfully locks the viewer into May's perspective. She may be an odd duck, but we adore her and want for her happiness. At first.

The key to understanding May is her attachment to Suzie, the doll her mother gave her as a child. May keeps Suzie in a glass case, and it gradually becomes apparent that this lifeless figure represents a kind of physical perfection for our protagonist. And when May's relationship with Adam goes disastrously south, her obsession with the particular physical attributes of everyone in her orbit takes an unnervingly dark turn.

McKee's "May" is a sensitively rendered horror classic about a young woman whose engagement with the real world has been irreparably skewed by unrealistic beauty standards. It's body horror, but not in a way you've ever seen before, and, really, not in a way anyone's come close to attempting since. And in an age when a hit horror flick like Zach Cregger's "Barbarian" is currently not available on physical media, it's incredibly gratifying to learn that "May" is getting its first Region 1 Blu-ray release from Lionsgate's Vestron Collector's Series label. The extras-loaded Blu streets on May 13, 2025, and you can place a pre-order right now. Perhaps now "May" will finally get its due from mainstream moviegoers who've proved receptive to offbeat horror movies like "Longlegs" and "Cuckoo."