Film Analysis – Elisabeth Moss Gets Outshone by Kate Hudson in Oddball Film

There are scenes in the released schlock horror Shell that might present it like a giddy five-wines-in camp classic if taken out of context. Picture the scene where the actress's glamorous wellness CEO forces her co-star to operate a giant vibrator while instructing her to gaze into a mirror. Additionally, a abrupt beginning starring former performer Elizabeth Berkley tearfully cutting away shells that have appeared on her flesh before being slaughtered by a masked killer. Next, Hudson serves an sophisticated feast of her removed outer layer to excited diners. Furthermore, Kaia Gerber transforms into a enormous crustacean...

It's a shame Shell was as hilariously enjoyable as those descriptions suggest, but there's something oddly flat about it, with star turned helmer Max Minghella struggling to bring the excessive delights that something as absurd as this so obviously needs. The purpose remains unclear what or why Shell is and its intended audience, a inexpensive endeavor with very little to offer for those who had no role in the filmmaking, feeling even less necessary given its regrettable similarity to The Substance. The two highlight an Hollywood performer striving to get the jobs and fame she feels entitled to in a cruel industry, unjustly judged for her looks who is then lured by a game-changing procedure that offers quick results but has terrifying consequences.

Though Fargeat's version hadn't premiered last year at Cannes, four months before Minghella's was shown at the Toronto film festival, the contrast would still not be flattering. While I was not a big enthusiast of The Substance (a garishly made, excessively lengthy and hollow act of provocation somewhat rescued by a stellar acting) it had an clear lasting power, swiftly attaining its deserved place within the entertainment world (expect it to be one of the most parodied films in next year's Scary Movie 6). Shell has about the same level of depth to its predictable message (expectations for women's looks are unreasonably brutal!), but it fails to rival its over-the-top body horror, the film finally evoking the kind of low-cost copycat that would have come after The Substance to the VHS outlet back in the day (the inferior sequel, the knock-off etc).

Surprisingly starring by Moss, an performer not known for her humor, miscast in a role that demands someone more eager to embrace the absurdity of the genre. She teamed up with Minghella on The Handmaid's Tale (one can see why they both might long for a break from that show's punishing grimness), and he was so determined for her to star that he decided to work around her being noticeably six months pregnant, leading to the star being distractingly hidden in a lot of bulky jackets and outerwear. As an uncertain star seeking to elbow her way into Hollywood with the help of a exoskeleton-inspired treatment, she might not really sell the role, but as the sleek 68-year-old CEO of a life-threatening beauty brand, Hudson is in significantly better form.

The actress, who remains a consistently overlooked talent, is again a pleasure to watch, excelling at 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 might have achieved. Coupled with a more comfortable co-star and a wittier script, the film could have unfolded like a deliriously nasty cross between a mid-century women's drama and an 80s creature feature, something Death Becomes Her did so wonderfully well.

But the script, from Jack Stanley, who also wrote the just as flaccid action thriller Lou, is never as acidic or as clever as it could be, mockery kept to its most transparent (the ending centering on the use of an NDA is more amusing in idea than execution). Minghella doesn't seem confident in what he's really trying to create, his film as plainly, slowly filmed as a TV drama with an just as bad soundtrack. If he's trying to do a self-aware exact duplicate of a bottom shelf VHS horror, then he hasn't gone far enough into conscious mimicry to sell it as such. Shell should take us all the way into madness, but it's too scared to commit fully.

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