Every once in a while a film comes along – Laugier’s Martyrs, Cronenberg’s Twins, von Trier’s Antichrist – that transcends conventional horror tropes to produce something challenging, thoughtful and even profound: Excision is just such a film.
The usually glamourous TV starlet, Annalynne McCord ditches the bleach, make-up and pretty much everything else to give a tour-de-force performance as troubled Pauline; a teen who practices DIY dissections whilst fantasising about a perfect clinical world of shiny surfaces and necrophilia.
Hunched, surly and awkward, Pauline exudes typical outsider bully bait yet writer-director Richard Bates Jr. has created a collision of opposites; making her outspoken, manipulative and forceful.
Pauline is psychologically broken whereas her beloved younger sister is physically sick: the focus of love and compassion as her health deteriorates through cystic fibrosis. As Excision peels away layer after layer of urban domestic mundanity then startling fantasy it becomes apparent that each sister has something nasty inside that needs to come out.
The ending arrives as a triumphant and appalling epiphany; inevitable, perhaps guessable, yet as shocking and unforgettable as a slap to the conscience. When that final scream begins you’ll want to join in.
Verdict ~ An astonishing collaboration of talent on both sides of the camera – the discerning and intellectual horror fan’s horror film.
*WARNING* not suitable for little eyes!
The best found footage movies find innovative ways to incorporate the act and products of filmmaking into the plot itself; so a seemingly routine teen slasher becomes sharp and memorable through clever use of that familiar and idiosyncratic chewed-tape distortion. Meanwhile, Generation YouTube Trick or Treaters disrupt a dubious ritual yet continue to record the mayhem and danger – laughing when they ought to be screaming.
V/H/S is a perfect combination of old school and experimentation in search of stronger themes. The miscreants in the opening are suitably punished for their criminal misuse of technology and most of the stories are driven by strong female protagonists but these are issues left hanging in the wake of a simpler urge to shock and entertain.
Herbert does little to shift his low-brow Stephen King associations with this perfunctory foray into the world of faery.
