Max Minghella directs an extremely silly yet frustratingly un-fun LA-set horror concerning an actor trying to look attractive
If they were explained in isolation, there are scenes in unloaded schlock scary Shell that would certainly make it appear like a giddy five-wines-in camp traditional. There’s the bit where Kate Hudson‘s vampy health CEO makes Elisabeth Moss masturbate with a gigantic vibrator while making her gaze in the mirror. There’s a chilly open starring ex-Showgirl Elizabeth Berkley tearfully hacking off coverings that have grown on her skin before obtaining slaughtered by a covered up killer. There’s Hudson serving an elegant dinner of her thrown out skin to fervent guests. And afterwards there’s Kaia Gerber becoming a giant lobster …
If only Shell was as outrageously fun as that all makes it sound, yet there’s something strangely flat concerning it, actor-turned-director Max Minghella having a hard time to bring the luridly indulgent enjoyments that something as ridiculous as this so undoubtedly requires. It’s never quite apparent what or why Shell is and who it might be for, an inexpensively made lark with really little to use those that weren’t associated with the manufacturing, really feeling also much less required offered its unfavorable resemblance to The Substance. Both concentrate on an LA star battling to get the focus and work she believes she deserves in a terrible sector, unfairly critiqued for her looks that is after that seduced by a game-changing treatment that supplies instantaneous incentives but has horrifying side effects.
Source: The Guardian