Shell Review – Elisabeth Moss Gets Outshone by Kate Hudson in Oddball Film

There are moments in the unveiled B-movie frightfest Shell that might present it like a giddy inebriated camp classic if taken out of context. Imagine the segment where the actress's seductive health guru compels Elisabeth Moss to use a large sex toy while forcing her to look into a mirror. There's also, a initial scene starring former performer Elizabeth Berkley tearfully removing crustaceans that have grown on her body before being killed by a masked killer. Next, Hudson presents an elegant dinner of her discarded skin to excited diners. Plus, Kaia Gerber transforms into a giant lobster...

I wish Shell was as hilariously enjoyable as those descriptions suggest, but there's something curiously lifeless about it, with actor-turned-director Max Minghella struggling to deliver the over-the-top thrills that something as absurd as this so clearly requires. The purpose remains unclear what or why Shell is and its intended audience, a inexpensive endeavor with few attractions for those who had no role in the production, feeling even less necessary given its unfortunate resemblance to The Substance. Each focus on an Los Angeles star fighting to get the attention and work she thinks she deserves in a ruthless field, unfairly critiqued for her physical traits who is then tempted by a revolutionary process that grants immediate benefits but has horrifying side effects.

Although Fargeat's version hadn't launched last year at Cannes, four months before Minghella's was shown at the Toronto film festival, the contrast would still not be flattering. Although I was not a big enthusiast of The Substance (a gaudily crafted, too drawn-out and hollow act of shock value mildly saved by a killer lead performance) it had an undeniable stickiness, swiftly attaining its deserved place within the culture (expect it to be one of the most parodied films in next year's Scary Movie 6). Shell has about the same degree of insight to its predictable message (female appearance ideals are impossibly punishing!), but it doesn't equal its over-the-top body horror, the film ultimately resembling the kind of no-budget rip-off that would have come after The Substance to the video store back in the day (the inferior sequel, the Critters to its Gremlins etc).

Surprisingly starring by Moss, an actor not known for her humor, poorly suited in a role that needs someone more willing to lean into the silliness of the genre. She worked with Minghella on The Handmaid's Tale (one can see why they both might crave a break from that show's unrelenting bleakness), and he was so desperate for her to lead that he decided to adjust for her being visibly six months pregnant, resulting in the star being obviously concealed in a lot of oversized sweatshirts and jackets. As an self-doubting performer seeking to push her entry into Hollywood with the help of a shell-based beauty regimen, she might not really sell the role, but as the slithering 68-year-old CEO of a life-threatening beauty brand, Hudson is in far greater control.

The performer, who remains a always underestimated star, is again a delight to watch, perfecting a distinctly Hollywood style of pretend sincerity underscored by something authentically dark and it's in her unfortunately limited scenes that we see what the film could have been. Coupled with a more suitable opponent and a wittier script, the film could have played like a feverishly mean cross between a 50s “woman's picture” and an decade-old beast flick, something Death Becomes Her did so brilliantly.

But the script, from Jack Stanley, who also wrote the similarly limp action thriller Lou, is never as acidic or as intelligent as it might have been, satire kept to its most obvious (the climax hinging on the use of an NDA is more humorous in idea than delivery). Minghella doesn't seem certain in what he's really trying to make, his film as simply, ploddingly shot as a daytime soap with an similarly poor soundtrack. If he's trying to do a knowing carbon copy of a low-rent tape fright, then he hasn't pushed hard enough into studied pastiche to convince the audience. Shell should take us all the way to the brink, but it's too scared 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