Now one of my favorite horror flicks, the movie The Cleaning Lady spins a morbid tale of jealousy and retribution. The story has great timing as it moves along at a creepy slow pace so you feel the sympathy, friendship, anticipation, and then the agony of the main characters. Like a lost and beaten animal, there’s always a chance that it may up and bite you.
Alice (Alexis Kendra) is a very pretty cosmetologist specializing in facials works from her apartment. Having the same bad dream on consecutive nights she tells Michael (Stelio Savante), a married man with whom she is having an affair, that it’s bringing her down. He offers to take her to Europe for three weeks where they can forget about all their problems. However, she has been attending Sex Anonymous meetings and her sponsor Miranda (Kari Marrone) tells her she cannot help her unless she cuts off the relationship cold turkey with the married man.
With her business growing one day she asks Shelly (Rachel Alig), the apartment building cleaning woman, if she would clean her apartment twice a week. Shelly is not ordinary and has lost her self-esteem due to the scars on her face from an incident when she was young involving her mother. But after urging by Alice and the chance at feeling normal, she accepts the job.
Thus begins a relationship that will get strained and take the two on a trajectory to solve each of their problems, but in an unpredictable way. Director and co-screenwriter Jon Knautz shows his ability to develop suspense and deliver enthralling characters to the screen. From Alice who’s knowingly perpetrating an illicit affair with a married man to the forlorn, despondent and psychologically damaged Shelly. Putting the two of them on the same plain is extremely difficult, but making the character Alice have guilt of her own, she uses Shelly as reparation to relieve the pain of her indiscretions.
Both main characters are terrific in their roles of restitution versus revenge as they bring about a playground horror. As the unwitting Alice, Alexis Kendra works her sexual misbehavior side showing the woman’s guilt and weakness to correct the wrong she has made to the wife of her lover. She shows Alice’s quandary and how the addiction to the sex has control her morality. It’s very nice direction and creation by Knautz setting up the reckoning for her immoral ways.
As the distraught and deranged Shelly the two actors, Rachel Alig as the older character and Mykayla Sohn as the teen version, their performances are an incredible stunning success of before and after. Allowed to be raped and demeaned by her mother’s want of money, teen Shelly fights back against the evil that’s been laid upon her. Rachel’s Shelly is the result of that abuse and the effects it has had on her over the years of being shunned due to her disfigurement. For her, there can only be one way out as the beast versus the beauty.
The Cleaning Lady has not been rated by the MPAA, but contains language, violence, rape, brutality, sex and gore. Be cautious when watching the home video as there are a lot of inappropriate scenes that may affect the young and immature. The movie has been released on DVD, VOD and Digital HD.
FINAL ANALYSIS: One of the better suspense filled horror flicks. (4.5 out of 5 Stars)
Specifications and additional video information:
Cast: Alexis Kendra, Rachel Alig, Stelio Savante, Mykayla Sohn and JoAnne McGrath
Director: Jon Knautz
MPAA Rating: Not Rated, contains language, violence, rape, brutality, sex and gore
Genre: Horror, Thriller
Running Time: 1 hr. 30 min.
Video Release Date: June 4, 2019
Language: English
Reviewed Format: DVD
Audio: Dolby Digital 5.1
Video: Widescreen, Aspect Ratio 2.35:1
Subtitles: English SDH, Spanish
Number of Discs: 1 Disc
Distributed by: RLJE FILMS
Released on: DVD, VOD, Digital HD
Writer, critic, film editor John Delia, Sr. has been on all sides of the movie business from publications to film making. He has worked as a film critic with ACED Magazine for more than 20 years and other publications for a total of 40 years. He earned a Bachelor’s degree in communications from the University of Florida. John is a member of the Southeastern Film Critics Association and Critics Association of Central Florida Send John a message at jdelia@acedmagazine.com
