Film Analysis – The Actress Gets Outshone by Her Co-Star in Schlocky Curio

There are scenes in the dumped schlock horror Shell that might present it like a giddy tipsy camp classic if viewed separately. Imagine the scene where the actress's seductive health guru compels her co-star to masturbate with a enormous device while instructing her to gaze into a mirror. Moreover, a cold open featuring former Showgirl Elizabeth Berkley tearfully removing crustaceans that have developed on her skin before being killed by a hooded assailant. Then, Hudson presents an sophisticated feast of her discarded skin to enthused diners. And, Kaia Gerber turns into a enormous crustacean...

It's a shame Shell was as wildly entertaining as that all makes it sound, but there's something curiously lifeless about it, with actor-turned-director Max Minghella having difficulty to provide the luridly indulgent pleasures that something as silly as this so clearly requires. Audiences may wonder what or why Shell is and its intended audience, a inexpensive endeavor with very little to offer for those who weren't involved in the production, appearing more superfluous given its unlucky likeness to The Substance. Both focus on an LA actor fighting to get the roles and recognition she believes is her due in a cruel industry, wrongly evaluated for her looks who is then seduced by a revolutionary process that offers quick results but has frightening drawbacks.

Even if Fargeat's version hadn't premiered last year at Cannes, ahead of Minghella's was unveiled at the Toronto film festival, the contrast would still not be flattering. Even though I was not a huge admirer of The Substance (a garishly made, too drawn-out and hollow act of shock value mildly saved by a killer lead performance) it had an clear lasting power, easily finding its rightful spot within the entertainment world (expect it to be one of the most mocked movies in next year's Scary Movie 6). Shell has about the same amount of substance to its and-then-what commentary (beauty standards for women are unreasonably brutal!), but it doesn't equal its extreme physical terror, the film ultimately resembling the kind of cheap imitation that would have trailed The Substance to the video store back in the day (the inferior sequel, the Critters to its Gremlins etc).

The film is oddly headlined by Moss, an actress not known for her humor, miscast in a role that demands someone more eager to dive into the absurdity of the genre. She collaborated with Minghella on The Handmaid's Tale (one can comprehend why they both might crave a break from that show's relentless darkness), and he was so eager for her to headline that he decided to work around her being noticeably six months pregnant, leading to the star being obviously concealed in a lot of big hoodies and outerwear. As an insecure actor seeking to push her entry into Hollywood with the help of a exoskeleton-inspired treatment, she might not really convince, but as the sleek 68-year-old CEO of a hazardous beauty brand, Hudson is in significantly better form.

The actor, who remains a always underestimated star, is again a joy to watch, perfecting a distinctly Hollywood style of pretend sincerity underscored by something truly menacing and it's in her all-too-brief scenes that we see what the film had the potential to become. Coupled with a more comfortable co-star and a more incisive script, the film could have played like a deliriously nasty cross between a 1950s female melodrama and an decade-old beast flick, something Death Becomes Her did so wonderfully well.

But the script, from Jack Stanley, who also wrote the equally weak action thriller Lou, is never as acidic or as smart as it could be, mockery kept to its most obvious (the finale relying on the use of an NDA is funnier in theory than realization). Minghella doesn't seem certain in what he's really trying to produce, his film as plainly, ploddingly shot as a afternoon serial with an similarly poor music. If he's trying to do a knowing carbon copy of a cheap cassette scare, then he hasn't gone far enough into studied pastiche to sell it as such. Shell should take us all the way over the edge, but it's too fearful to take the plunge.

• Shell is up for hire via streaming in the US, in Australia on 30 October and in the UK on 7 November