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

There are scenes in the dumped schlock horror Shell that could paint it as like a giddy tipsy cult favorite if taken out of context. Picture the scene where the actress's glamorous wellness CEO compels Elisabeth Moss to use a giant vibrator while instructing her to gaze into a mirror. There's also, a initial scene highlighting former dancer Elizabeth Berkley sadly cutting away shells that have developed on her skin before being murdered by a unknown murderer. Subsequently, Hudson serves an refined meal of her shed epidermis to excited diners. Plus, Kaia Gerber turns into a giant lobster...

If only Shell was as wildly entertaining as that all makes it sound, but there's something curiously lifeless about it, with performer turned filmmaker Max Minghella having difficulty to provide the luridly indulgent pleasures that something as absurd as this so obviously needs. Audiences may wonder what or why Shell is and the target viewers, a cheaply made lark with very little to offer for those who didn't participate in the production, feeling even less necessary given its regrettable similarity to The Substance. The two focus on an Los Angeles star striving to get the jobs and fame she feels entitled to in a harsh business, wrongly evaluated for her physical traits who is then lured by a revolutionary process that provides instant rewards but has horrifying side effects.

Although Fargeat's version hadn't debuted last year at Cannes, preceding Minghella's was unveiled at the Toronto film festival, the contrast would still not be favorable. Although I was not a huge admirer of The Substance (a flashily produced, excessively lengthy and hollow act of shock value somewhat rescued by a stellar acting) it had an undeniable stickiness, swiftly attaining its appropriate niche 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 level of depth to its obvious social critique (beauty standards for women are extremely harsh!), but it doesn't equal 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 video store back in the day (the inferior sequel, the Critters to its Gremlins etc).

It's strangely led by Moss, an actor not known for her humor, miscast in a role that needs someone more ready to lean into the absurdity of the genre. She collaborated with Minghella on The Handmaid's Tale (one can understand why they both might crave a break from that show's unrelenting bleakness), and he was so desperate for her to star that he decided to adjust for her being visibly six months pregnant, leading to the star being obviously concealed in a lot of oversized sweatshirts and outerwear. As an self-doubting performer seeking to push her entry into Hollywood with the help of a crustaceous skin routine, she might not really sell the role, but as the sleek 68-year-old CEO of a hazardous beauty brand, Hudson is in significantly better form.

The performer, who remains a consistently overlooked talent, is again a joy to watch, perfecting a particular West Coast variety of pretend sincerity backed up by something truly menacing and it's in her regrettably short scenes that we see what the film had the potential to become. Coupled with a more suitable sparring partner and a wittier script, the film could have played like a deliriously nasty cross between a 1950s female melodrama and an 1980s monster movie, something Death Becomes Her did so wonderfully well.

But the script, from Jack Stanley, who also wrote the similarly limp action thriller Lou, is never as biting or as intelligent as it could be, social commentary kept to its most blatant (the finale centering on the use of an NDA is more humorous in concept than execution). Minghella doesn't seem sure in what he's really trying to make, his film as bluntly, ploddingly shot as a TV drama with an equally rubbishy score. If he's trying to do a self-aware carbon copy of a low-rent tape fright, then he hasn't pushed hard enough into conscious mimicry to convince the audience. Shell should take us all the way into madness, but it's too scared to make the jump.

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