This is Carter Mays’s second film. His first, Bad Chicken, was made in 2013 and seems to have had a very limited distribution, despite picking up an award or two on the festival circuit. That movie featured Norah (played by Isabelle Gardo), an actor ‘starring’ in a reality TV show devised and directed by some Muppet-style chickens. Yep, you read that right: chickens.
Gardo stars in Inside Scarlett too. She plays the Scarlett of the title, a deeply damaged and increasingly agoraphobic person who finds herself pregnant without knowing how, with a father she can’t stand, and a female childhood friend who seemingly can’t be trusted (in part because she’s having an affair with Scarlett’s father). In Scarlett’s increasingly unhinged mind, her only real friend is her pet stuffed chicken (yep, one of the same chickens from Bad Chicken) who dispenses advice in a drawly southern voice and who Scarlett increasingly suspects just might be the father of her child.
Is that nuts enough for you? Well you try watching it. I’m undecided about whether this is genius or lunacy (and for a director to make two films, his only two films, both featuring anthropomorphic chickens suggests the latter, particularly when it’s understood that there’s a third poultry-based film at the planning stage). It would be nothing without Gardo’s central performance which manages to mix vulnerability with dark comedy without going over the top about it (she reminded me of Katie Featherston from the Paranormal Activity films).
But the film rather spoilt it for me by being just a little bit too tricksy, having a rather prosaic final reel explanation (straight out of Zack Snyder’s Sucker Punch) and a frankly silly final shot. But I liked the way it mixed up timescales – an old trick to make a simple story look less so – and charted Scarlett’s falling apart very effectively.
The film did the rounds of the festivals in 2015, but its Facebook page has been quiet for over a year now, suggesting that the director’s brand of cinematic quirkiness isn’t for everyone. I’d recommend giving it a go if it ever gets a commercial release, but believe me it puts a whole new spin on the old ad jingle “I feel like Chicken Tonight!”
