The best word to describe Zack Parker's new pseudo-Hitchcock horror/thriller is 'twisted'. Let's give Mr. Parker some credit for hitting up all those doctors and dentists and actually getting his film produced. But beyond that, there's something rather seedy and exploitative about Parker's tale of two demented women and their need for attention.
'Proxy' might have actually earned positive points in the pantheon of horror or thriller genre goodies, had he infused his characters with a modicum of verisimilitude. But alas, there's none of that here. Proxy begins with anti-heroine #1, Esther, whose late-term pregnancy is terminated violently in an alleyway, by a hooded assailant. We're fooled into having sympathy for Esther as it appears that she ends up as a classic victim who attends a bereavement group.
But soon, Parker attempts to shock by revealing that Esther's lesbian lover, Anika, killed Esther's baby in utero, at her request. Esther reveals her contempt for motherhood but instead of arranging for an abortion, the staged street assault is consummated because she merely wants attention. The motive of perverted Esther is awfully hard to believe in but Parker asks us to suspend our disbelief and continue on with him into darker scenarios to come.
Then Esther meets her so-called 'proxy', Melanie, at the aforementioned bereavement group. Esther discovers that Melanie attends the group as part of a twisted fantasy where she imagines that she's lost both her husband and young son in a car accident. Then Esther spies Melanie pretending that she's lost her son in a department store. What happens afterward is where Mr. Parker completely lost me. It's one thing to have a black comedy where all the characters are sort of perverse and demented and their actions might occasionally amuse; but please don't do things like have one of your characters murder a young child.
But nothing will stop Mr. Parker in his quest for cheap thrills. He actually has Esther go over to Melanie's house, and drown a child in a bathtub (fortunately, Mr. Parker doesn't show the actual drowning of the child in all its gory detail). Nonetheless, the murder leaves a most unpleasant taste in one's mouth, for the rest of the film. As for Esther's motive in killing the child, she deems Melanie a hypocrite for 'fantasizing' about mourning for her child, and decides to have the fantasy, turn into reality.
Wouldn't you know it but Melanie's creepy husband, Patrick, kills Esther by blowing her away with his handy shotgun and she unceremoniously falls into the bathtub in slow motion, with all her blood and guts splaying in multiple directions. The attendant police investigation is not shown on screen and we're asked to believe that the police are stymied in uncovering Esther's identity. What's more, Melanie actually succeeds in maintaining hers and Patrick's anonymity, despite the media coverage (a story about a woman breaking into a home and murdering a young child, probably would have went viral all over the internet, and made the national news). Still, Mr. Parkers maintained at a recent Q&A, that this was merely a 'local' story.
Before the denouement, the narrative slows down considerably as there's too much focus on a despondent Patrick, contemplating his next course of action. Mr. Parker intimates that Patrick is one step away from being a serial killer himself (he fantasizes about what he could have done to Esther had he only wounded her and brought her down to the basement, where he could have done it the 'right way', using all of his special 'equipment').
Melanie becomes a proxy as she fulfills Esther's prediction that she'll basically become a killer just like her. 'Proxy' plays out when Anika decides to take revenge on Patrick and Melanie for Esther's death. She's not that surprised when she finds Melanie has already finished Patrick off in the bathroom but IS surprised when Melanie blows her away with Patrick's shotgun.
Kristina Klebe as Anika probably steals the show as Esther's over the top lesbian lover. There's not much more to recommend about 'Proxy'. Worse than the characters lack of believability is probably the director's failure to approach the story with a sense of fun. Instead, he inserts scenes including the murder of a child, wholly inappropriate for the atmosphere of black humor, which he is attempting to convey.
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