Karen  ★★½

WHAT an odd film Karen is.

The writer and director, Coke Daniels, has made a dozen previous films but none have had decent reviews.

Karen continues the trend with many terrible reviews and Golden Raspberry Awards for worst film, director, screenplay and actress.

And it has one of the most overdone, cringe-inducing epilogues I have seen in a long time.

Yet, I didn’t hate it.

Taryn Manning’s performance as the Karen of the title is at times frightening, at others hilarious and there have been plenty of lesser thrillers.

It’s about a young, upwardly-mobile black couple, Malik and Imani Jeffries, who move into a new house in an affluent Atlanta suburban community.

But Karen Drexler, their next-door neighbour and president of the local Homeowners Association, is not impressed.

Her passive-aggressive attitude is immediately grating but Malik and Imani try to be polite and shrug the comments off.

Slowly Karen’s efforts to send them packing ratchet up in intensity to the point where she enlists the help of her racist police officer brother.

There is nothing subtle here. Karen is presented as totally unhinged and even has Confederate Army memorabilia strewn around her home.

But Daniels’ film, intentionally or otherwise, also revels in blatant stereotypes on the side of his hero and heroine.

How anyone involved thought that epilogue was a fitting way to present an important message is beyond me.