Proxy (film)

Plot

While walking home from a doctor's appointment, heavily pregnant Esther Woodhouse (Alexia Rasmussen) is knocked unconscious by a person wearing a hoodie, who hits her stomach repeatedly with a brick. Despite the frantic efforts of emergency room doctors, her baby is delivered stillborn via caesarean section. Noticing that Esther doesn't seem to have any support from family or friends (the baby having been conceived with a sperm donor), a social worker at the hospital recommends that Esther attend a support group for grieving parents.

In the support group meetings, Esther meets and befriends Melanie Michaels (Alexa Havins), a woman who claims her husband and child were killed by a drunk driver. Later on, while visiting a department store, Esther sees Melanie walking in alone and suddenly start screaming that her son Peyton was kidnapped and begging a security guard for help. Esther follows Melanie to the parking lot and witnesses her taking Peyton out of the car and into the store. Oddly, Esther appears pleased by this.

While Esther is home, her attacker suddenly appears. Esther is dragged from the kitchen and is raped by Anika Barön (Kristina Klebe) who has performed the attack at Esther's request. Esther then proceeds to perform oral sex on Anika. A short while afterwards, Anika inquires about Melanie- clearly jealous- but Esther dismisses her. Esther is next seen in a bar. She is in a toilet stall, having sex while another man watches. The men swap places and the second man is more aggressive.

Esther later invites Melanie to her home. Esther asks about Melanie's family and she sticks to her drunk-driver story. Esther then tries to seduce Melanie, claiming that she's the only person who understands her. Melanie rejects Esther and when the latter says she knows what happened at the department store, Melanie slaps her and tells her never to contact her, again.

Esther takes Anika's truck and tracks down Melanie's house. Sneaking in with a crowbar, Esther finds Peyton in the bathroom and drowns him in the bathtub. Melanie enters, visibly distraught, demanding to know why Esther has done this. Esther responds that she did "the things that [Melanie] couldn't do" and now they can be together. After she says this, Melanie's husband Patrick (Joe Swanberg) walks in with a shotgun and kills Esther.

Days pass and the Michaels are heavily grieving. Patrick is particularly unhinged and fantasizes about having left Esther alive so he could torture her. After noticing Anika's truck and the fact that it hasn't moved ever since the murder, he enters it and finds the registration. However, when he reports it to the police, he is told to stop since it would constitute theft (even though the door was unlocked). Patrick also starts attending a support group but then finds out from a regular that his wife had been secretly attending for a year and that she had claimed Peyton was kidnapped. Patrick confronts Melanie who denies everything and apparently leaves her.

Meanwhile, Anika, enraged by Esther's death, tries to track down the Michaels and finds out where they are from the police informing her about her truck. She goes to Melanie's house, ties her up and plans to wait for Patrick, so she can torture and kill them both. She then hears running water from the bathroom and investigates, believing it is Patrick taking a shower. Instead, she finds him dead. Melanie breaks free and holds Anika at gunpoint and thanks her, claiming she just made a "much better story". Melanie fantasizes about being interviewed on TV two years later, having written a book about her experiences on having both her son and husband murdered by a deranged woman and her revenge seeking lover, respectively, as well as advocating for child safety and self-defense and ending the interview by announcing that she has remarried and is now pregnant. Anika then manages to reach for a hammer while Melanie fires the shotgun, ending the movie with a black screen and the sound of the gunshot, the outcome unknown.

Cast

Reception

Critical reception for Proxy was mixed to positive and Bloody Disgusting praised the film as "a joyfully trashy, sinful slice of macabre entertainment". Fangoria also gave a positive review, citing the suspense and acting as highlights. Shock Till You Drop gave a more mixed review, overall praising the film while stating that the second half of the movie "drags a little". Reviews from ReelFilm and the Toronto Standard were more negative, with the Toronto Standard remarking that while the film was a "valiant effort to copy [Hitchcock]", the movie may have been too ambitious for the budget and actors to live up to. The film currently holds a 57% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.