‘Pollen’ Review: Greek Mythology Meets Real World Horror In New Rape-Revenge Film
Mary Beth McAndrews
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The opening moments of D.W. Medoff‘s Pollen are a series of haunting shots of a young woman hanging from a tree, covered in yellow-green pollen, as if the forest is slowly reclaiming her body. From the get-go, Medoff establishes Pollen as an uncomfortable, but strangely beautiful experience. And that’s before the sexual assault and chaotic unraveling of the film’s heroine.
Hera (Ava Rose Kinard) is a young woman who’s just scored her dream office job where she crunches numbers at a gray desk surrounded by snarky co-workers. Her innocence and willingness to learn catch the eye of senior coworker Zach (Tyler Buckingham), who swiftly takes advantage of her. After a date, he forces his way into Hera’s apartment and takes what he believes is his.
Naive and enamored with a yellow flower Zach gives her, Hera refuses to acknowledge that she was raped. Instead, she buries her trauma deep inside in favor of competing in her toxic work environment and trying to prove she’s a cool girl. Hera isn’t just a victim of sexual assault, but of a cutthroat corporate culture that further dehumanizes her. As she represses her rage, she begins to see a large tree monster following her. The longer she tries to work as though nothing is wrong, the more the monster torments her and the more her psyche unravels.
Thankfully, Hera’s sexual assault is only briefly shown, and not explicitly, with Medoff instead focusing on Hera’s exploitation in the workplace. Medoff understands that there’s no need to show an explicit rape scene to make a deep emotional impact. Further, he has Hera’s rapist not be a stranger, but a coworker she is attracted to. The story is playing in the nuanced grey areas of gendered power dynamics that keep many survivors from speaking up or even believing they were assaulted.
Paired with the dark but crucial story are disturbing and creepy visuals centered around plants. Flowers are regurgitated in work bathrooms, unnatural globs of pollen ooze from Hera’s body, and Hera finds herself dissociating into the woods. These beautifully shot sequences are what make the film so creepy and unnerving.
The tree monster is a practical suit, an impressive feat for low-budget indie horror. The suit makes the creature’s presence all the more intimidating. While the monster is effective in its hulking appearance, it’s also the weakest part of the film. It feels tacked on to a more grounded workplace tragedy rather than integrated seamlessly into Hera’s overall narrative, a unique but shallow vessel representing trauma.
While the metaphor doesn’t fully work by the film’s end, Pollen still delivers a chilling take on the rape-revenge film wrapped in an indictment of toxic corporate work culture. Medoff uses the familiar trauma horror framework to not just interrogate sexual assault, but of how the systems of capitalism and patriarchy want to grind women into a fine paste. But these systems underestimate our resilience and the power of our rage. Pollen tells a complicated contemporary horror story about a woman who, through horrific circumstances, learns to own that rage and refuses to let the system eat her alive.
Summary
While the metaphor doesn’t fully work by the film’s end, Pollen still delivers a chilling take on the rape-revenge film wrapped in an indictment of toxic corporate work culture.
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