happy international women’s day<3

same type of horror girlie (just at varying degrees of delusion, desire for love, mommy issues, murder, and self destruction)

These movies are in the same cinematic universe. to me

Excision (2008)

I've been reading a lot of posts analyzing the biblical symbolism and themes surrounding Henry Creel, in particular. So Pauline, the protagonist of the 2012 film Excision, came to mind. I'm curious whether any ST analysts have watched it.

You could easily say Pauline is a misunderstood outcast with a savior complex. The culmination of the film involves no shortage of gore; but without spoiling anything, Pauline is never depicted as a villain. We're in her head from the start. The people around her misunderstand her. Her love for her sister, who suffers from cystic fibrosis, allows us to see and feel Pauline's deep compassion. It demonstrates that she is not, in fact, a psychopath. Guess I'm (vaguely) going to spoil the ending in the next paragraph--

--Her love for her sister, paired with the increasing delusion concerning her own capabilities, propels her to the film's conclusion.

It's been forever since I watched it, but I remember this: Pauline sees her sister as the only person who can love her, and the only person she can love in return.

Another thing that strikes me about the film is its surrealist, Jodorowsky-esque dream sequences. Perhaps because ST has become more and more of a puzzle, wrapped in fragmented memories, it has that surrealist feel I love so much (mainly in the early, Lovecrafty seasons). It does draw in the Lynch fans, after all.

Here's a gif of a Jodorowsky-esque dream sequence from Excision.

Biblical imagery. Savior/monster dichotomy. Monster vs. Superhero.

Some visuals from Jodorowsky's The Holy Mountain:

So, an interesting fact about me, I'm an agnostic with a degree in Biblical Studies from an evangelical megachurch diploma mill - I was going to school to be a pastor.

I spent a non-trivial amount of time with ancient Hebrew and Greek lexicons, reading the books of the Bible in their original languages. I did a lot of extracurricular study on the ecumenical councils - the bishops that voted on which books were going to be "the Bible" initially at the behest of the Roman emperor Constantine. I read a lot of the Gnostic texts that contributed to early Christian philosophy but were declared heretical a few hundred years after they were written.

The conclusion I came to was that if there were ever any spiritual truths in the texts that make up the Bible, they would've undoubtedly been obscured during Christianity's time as the official religion of the Roman Empire, if not excised entirely. Even just the fact that Christianity was the official religion of Rome often comes as a surprise to Evangelical Christians - they tend to be indoctrinated with a narrative that the Romans targeted Christians for persecution, they see Christians being thrown to lions as the representative image of Christianity in Ancient Rome. In reality, Roman historians are the ones that created that narrative in the first place, hundreds of years after the fact. The relationship between Rome and Christianity was complicated. For a couple of centuries, there was some scattered persecution, generally not targeted at Christians specifically. Ultimately, however, the Empire's attitude toward Christianity became essentially "if you can't beat them, join them."

The Roman Empire had need of an official religion and a holy text that reflected its values - xenophobia, patriarchy, slavery, expansionism - and the ecumenical councils provided it. People point out the hypocrisy of modern-day evangelicals for saying "God is love" but then hating women and minorities, but that is the religion of the Roman Empire, alive and well in 2023. It's a stretch to call the Roman Empire "fascist" (the word didn't exist yet), but the word fascism comes from Fasces, the symbol of Roman imperial magistrates. It is no coincidence that the more literally you interpret the Bible, the more comfortable you become with a nationalist Christian theocracy, as the Bible was assembled by the ecumenical councils to be a cultural assimilation handbook for new, recently-conquered subjects of the Roman Empire - the world's first "Christian nation." Modern-day Christians promote the idea that people are "twisting" the Bible to support hatred, bigotry, and oppression, but they're ignoring there was a period of several hundred years where anything that questioned the absolute racial and cultural supremacy of the Roman Empire and it's natural-born citizens was declared "heresy" and struck from the canon. It's a text whose primary purpose is to provide spiritual justification for conquering and subjugating people.

That means White Christian Nationalists aren't "misinterpreting" the Bible, they're using it exactly the way the Roman Empire intended it to be used. To codify and legitimize a caste system where native-born male citizens occupy the highest strata, and political leaders are the arbiters of God's will. It took a lot of re-writing to take the "proto-communist" teachings of the early Christian church and turn it into that Bible, but that's probably why most of what became known as "the New Testament" was written by Roman citizens, well after after Jesus' death. Fun fact: Saul of Tarsus - author of the Pauline epistles, otherwise known as "two-thirds of the New Testament" - was a natural-born Roman citizen that never met Jesus. As if that wasn't a tenuous enough connection, about half of the Pauline epistles are probably falsely attributed. We don't really know who wrote them, when, or why.

Once you recognize the bias, it is glaring. The Bible paints patriarchy as such a fundamental force of nature that salvation itself is an "inheritance" you have to become "joint heirs with Christ" (the Son of God) to receive. It says anyone violent or debased enough to seize power is "appointed by God" - a step further than even "might makes right," this says "might makes you the literal mouthpiece of God on Earth." If I'm being honest, at this point it wouldn't matter if the Bible were the infallible "Word of God" or not - if this is "God" talking, I wouldn't worship him just based on principle.

But it puts Christians in a difficult spot. You either have to concede that the Bible is fallible (which is heresy, according to evangelicals) or that God really does hate women, foreigners, democracy, and social equality. If a divine force "guided" the decisions of the ecumenical councils it would mean God endorses slavery, government authoritarianism, and racial supremacy. On the other hand, if there was no divine influence, then the entire Christian canon is essentially fanfic, philosophy cherry-picked by Romans to not be at odds with their own imperialist values. Either way, it's not representative of ideals I could dedicate my life to. I left the church before my ordination.

Before my mother passed, dismayed for my eternal soul, she used to tell me she prayed Proverbs 22:6 over me often - "Train up a child in the way he should go: And when he is old, he will not depart from it." Christians regard this scripture as a promise that if they raise their children to know God, they won't be led astray as adults. I wonder sometimes if she got what she prayed for, but in a different way than she expected. She raised me to know a God of love, of peace, with a heart of justice and understanding (which means tolerance, by the way - it's the ancient Hebrew word shâmaʻ which means to hear, and understand. When King Solomon prayed for "understanding" to lead his people, he was asking for the ability to hear and relate to people different than himself. That's what scriptural 'wisdom' is - empathy and compassion - you know, the things Evangelical Christians call 'woke' now). Because of it, now that I'm 'old', I can't be led astray by the callous Roman imperialist god of the Bible or the new capitalist American prosperity Jesus that didn't really mean what he said with "sell all you have and give to the poor."

Seems a little arrogant, doesn't it? Maybe even offensive. "I know the truth, everyone else is wrong." Who do I think I am? But since I exist, now old and still well-"departed" from the modern Christian church, the only alternative explanations are a) Proverbs 22:6 isn't actually a promise from God despite what the majority of western Christians believe, b) God doesn't keep his promises or, c) nobody is listening to prayers from little old church ladies and this whole 'god' thing is just ascribing anthropomorphic motivations to the forces of coincidence and random chance in the first place. As an agnostic, I don't really have any skin in that game, so feel free to pick whichever explanation sits best with you. Just remember, if you ever ask yourself "what would Jesus do?" - the answer might include flipping over tables in a church bookstore and chasing church-goers with a bullwhip.

i look like pauline from excision

this is really sudden but any movie recommendations, im in a bit of drought for this to watch right now and i’m up for anything, especially if it’s horror related, or gay or can be interpreted as gay you know what i mean?

Horror and gays, two of my favourite things. Here's some movies that are mostly both.

My top choice is not-quite horror, and you've probably seen it, but just in case you haven't, Stand By Me (1986) is one of my favourite movies, and it's Stephen King, so it definitely has horror vibes, even if it's never out and out scary.

As for horror that's kinda gay? (I'll try to get the obvious ones out of the way since I'm not sure which ones you already know about.)

Ginger Snaps (2000) and Ginger Snaps: Unleashed (2004) feat. my favourite probably autistic, definitely (gender?)queer Brigitte Fitzgerald.

I know it's really popular now, again, but the old Interview with the Vampire (1994) was pretty queer for its time. Obviously the show outshines it in terms of queer content, but hey, I love these two idiots.

Tomie (富江) (1998) from Japan is pretty cool and queer. In a similar vein, Wishing Stairs (2003) (which I think is the third? one in the Korean Whispering Corridors series) still sticks in little queer teen me's mind.

Obviously Jennifer's Body (2009), this is like my comfort film lmao.

The Quiet (2005)

and

Excision (2012) feels pretty queer to me, but others might disagree. At the very least, Pauline is so wonderfully weird she's basically queer in my books.

All Cheerleaders Die (2013) was a lot more fun than I thought it would be.

also, maybe it's not overtly queer enough for other people, but the friendship in The Battery (2012) which is one of my FAVOURITE ZOMBIE FILMS OF ALL TIME is a pretty good one. It could be homoerotic if you squint??

Lyle (2014) and What Keeps You Alive (2018) are a very specific brand of overtly queer horror that is specifically, canonically queer, but not my favourite type of queer, if I'm being honest. I don't want to spoil anything so I won't say more. Lyle is an incredible film, and not just because Gaby Hoffman is so so beautiful and absolutely just knocks it out of the park. What Keeps You Alive is... less good, but fun to watch with pals, I guess. It's that kind of horror.

Speaking of beautiful people, Don't Kill Me (Non mi uccidere) (2021) Alice Pagani and Silvia Calderoni I'm sorry? My gender exploded. I don't know why it has such a bad rating on imdb. It wasn't amazing, but it was fun and unique. Worth a shot, imo.

The Perfection (2019) what a fucking ride. Pretty queer. Maybe don't eat first.

The Midnight Swim (2014) isn't quite horror and isn't quite queer but it is female-centric, and I don't think enough people have seen it. It deserves a watch.

The Blackcoat's Daughter (2015) was a girl's boarding school which already made it queer enough for me haha. Some good scares in this one. Better than anticipated.

And, speaking of boarding schools, The Silenced | 경성학교: 사라진 소녀들) (2015) is a Korean movie set during the Japanese occupation of Korea in the '30s and idk man. Beautiful, weird, gay. It was good. If you like this one, you will probably like A Tale of Two Sisters (장화, 홍련) (2003) which is (probably) not queer but very, very good horror and very beautiful.

They Look Like People (2015) is another one like The Battery. Could be homoerotic if you squint. Obsessed with the male friendship in this one, and the mental illness factor. I really love this movie. This is the movie I would maybe double-feature with Super Dark Times (2017) for top five fave boy-friendships.

Raw (Grave) (2016) arguably not queer, but certainly queered desires or 'othered' desires. Another female-centric horror. I love this one. Blue My Mind (2017) feels Queer AF. It's like if Fucking Åmål (1999) was a horror movie. I also recommend Fucking Åmål, but it's not horror, it's just queer.

Thelma (2017) actually queer. Beautiful, extremely well-done, not crazy about the ending.

Would it be weird of me to mention The Shed (2019) Maybe I just wanted it to be queerer? I can't actually remember if it was now, just that the potential was there.

And, not quite queer but definitely good horror, check out Magic Magic (2013) if you haven't seen it. Girl Asleep (2015) is horror adjacent, not super queer, but also just... so weird and good and fun.

I really enjoyed Excision (2012)! It walks this really interesting line between teen drama and horror flick, and if it had a different ending, I wouldn’t call it horror at all. You get these tiny dream sequences of gratuitous blood and gore, and Pauline’s final dive into the deep end is foreshadowed plenty, but I still didn’t believe it still I saw it.

Frankly, even though the sheer quantity of blood off the charts, it occupies such a small amount of the run time that I consider the real horror of the movie to be Paulina’s mother. Honestly, I haven’t hated a character this much since Leland Palmer. If I was being clever, I could say that this movie is Ladybird made by Cronenberg, because it is ALL about fraught mother-daughter relationships. It’s a little too clean and not quite dreamy enough to be Cronenberg, but it’s growing out of the same soil. Anyways, fuck Phyllis.

AnnaLynne McCord’s performance is incredible. She’s styled like Bridget in Ginger Snaps, all slouchy and grimy and grouchy. She’s got this awful little smile, one that makes you go “oh shit she is waaay further off her rocker than I thought.” She does terrible things but you have to love her! She throws food at her mother during Family Dinner Time because her mother slapped her. She beats another girl up because she spray-painted Paulina Is A KCunt on her garage. She tells a girl her vag looks like a diseased axe wound because that girl tells her she has the body of a 9 year old boy. God! It’s incredible.

The content warnings are for gore, medical abuse, consuming gross blood, animal dissection and the murder of teenagers, but honestly I feel like the effect is more cumulative than anything else. You do see a lot of blood on screen, but imo the horror is based in the atmosphere and the situation, rather than any particular gross shot. 8/10 slick, cool, brutal.

Tagged by @explosionshark

favorite color: blue or green, and basically any cool colors. I also love a good charcoal grey

currently reading: I may have started Gideon the Ninth again for the third time

I’m also working my way through The Monstrous Feminine by Barbara Creed, cause I keep suspending to watch more of the movies it mentions.

last song: Antagonist by the Nova Twins

last series: I just finished the tragically short-lived Quacks with my friend and it was so good, I can’t believe it’s only 6 episodes.

last movies: The Hunger, 1983 and Excision 2012.

The Hunger was good, although I found the vampire lore to be rather unexplored. Which I suppose made it kind of unique, but I was left with a lot of questions. Also a bit disappointing that there wasn’t as much of David Bowie being a hot vampire as I expected

Excision was a weird one. I feel like it was trying to be both a dark teen comedy and also a serious drama about terminal illness, and in my opinion it didn’t quite pull them both off satisfactorily. I think if they wanted to go with the ending they did, there should have been less focus on the psychosexual nature of Pauline’s fantasy sequences? Idk, there were definitely tonal inconsistencies that were jarring

currently working on: technically I’m still working on this short film project, if you take a very liberal definition to “working on.” I did some shooting for it last week which was the most progress I’d made in several weeks.

Also a shitty Locked Tomb painting that I’ll probably never share because it’s very not good lol.

tag nine other people: oh gosh, that’s a lot of people and I don’t have many mutuals, uhhh @starsandmoongay @stellernorth @couldcarefewer @weedsandwishes @alectothinker @restlesshush @thisyearsgirl3 @iwilleatyourenglish @jules-slayer-of-the-vampyres

Hiii could u please enumerate from which horror movies these girls are! 🥺 just for my summer watch list and because I’m not as well versed in [horror] movies in general… thank you!

https://wherewolf.tumblr.com/post/688803747087990784/where-are-u-sitting-horror-girlies-edition

table 1: akasha (queen of the damned) jennifer (jennifer’s body) mary (american mary) table 2: anna (possession) amanda (saw) lucille (crimson peak) table 3: nancy (the craft) ginger (ginger snaps) tiffany (bride of chucky) table 4: justine (raw) carrie (carrie) may (may) table 5: grace (ready or not) maxine (x) sidney (scream) table 6: ripley (alien) clarice (the silence of the lambs) helen (candyman) table 7: maud (saint maud) thomasine (the vvitch) susie (suspiria 2018) nina (black swan) table 8: wendy (the shining) dani (midsommar) edith (crimson peak) table 9: pauline (excision) india (stoker) brigitte (ginger snaps)

hope that helps!! happy movie watching :3

top 5 horror women (doesnt have to be final girls !)

oh this is TOUGH... ummm.. damn.. i am definitely not sure about the last one but sidney prescott (scream), queen akasha (queen of the damned), mia allen (evil dead), tiffany valentine (chucky), and may dove candy (may)... ugh i am fighting with myself right now on that last one i am thinking of elvira, beverly marsh (it), amanda young (saw), ginger and brigitte fitzgerald (ginger snaps), taylor gentry (behind the mask: the rise of leslie vernon), carrie white (carrie), pearl (pearl), baby firefly (house of 1000 corpses), grace le domas (ready or not), justine (raw), sally hardesty (the texas chainsaw massacre), laurie strode (halloween), pauline (excision), ellen ripley (alien), mae (near dark), nash (the hitcher), allegra geller (existenz), shilo wallace & amber sweet (repo! the genetic opera).... there are too many and so many more okay SORRY i have to cut myself off it just hurt my heart to not have honorable mentions i am sick in the head and i love women!!!!

Excision (2012) is on Tubi, you know...

Tubi is a free, no-credit-card-or-login movie/television streaming service that is, might I add, a legitimate service; you can drop your guard while you use it. That said, you may not want to drop your guard around Excision. Not only do you need to be aware that this movie features nudity, blood, strong language, sad family dynamics, sex, and mutilation, but you should prepare to be disarmed by surprising use of genuine affection.

I went into this movie looking for a decent scary-adjacent flick about a weird kid who does a shocking thing. It is definitely a story about a strange kid closer to the top of the Disturbing Movie Iceberg. But I was touched by its display of different types of affection, particularly the awkward kind that often misses or under-delivers. Like, when you care but that care is lost under layers of other things or goes into a tunnel only to come out deformed. Or, the thread of honest love that’s been smothered in so much politeness and duty you can’t believe its in there.

The valuable relationship between Grace and Pauline meant a lot to me, as the weird (little) sister to her polar opposite (or so it seems). Gore and ugliness aside, I think the film does capture the version of familial love that exists in the huge ‘caution zone’ before ‘red alert, call the cops’. That said, it goes very south.

Basically...if you can stomach it, watch it. It has a surprising amount of metaphorical heart. And, you know, flesh. Also, a sprinkle of dark comedy!

frost, harvest, amber, spice, orchard, bonfire, cranberry, maize, quilt, pumpkin, ghost!! sorry, i know it's a lot, but i sent a bunch more so you can choose which ones you really wanna do rather than do all of them!!

I'll never not take the opportunity to talk in length about myself but I will make a read more to keep it tasteful on the feed. thank you for asking all of these starboy.

frost - if you could give some advice to your younger self, what would you say?

be careful about who you give yourself to. there are a lot of people in your inner circles that see you as an object to be used rather than a person to be loved. the anger you redirect at yourself so it doesn't hurt the people around you is rotting your own self esteem making you more susceptible to being taken advantage of. lash out at people who hurt you and cut connections that harm you. know that I love you dearly and don't judge you at all. we become something so much greater than anyone ever gave us credit for - including you. also cut your hair and don't be afraid of your own nature.

harvest - what fictional character do you most identify with? Why?

john silver from black sails because he's a charismatic storyteller who uses his charm as a form of survival and a way to engage with others without having people understand who and what he is - including to a degree, himself + the way he loves people and the way people love him. amanda from thoroughbreds for her final monologue. pauline rom excision for her erotic connection to dissection and violence. nell from the haunting of hill house book because she thinks she's playing the game right but it's because she doesn't see how the fates have her tied down. nancy from the craft for her expression and her rage and lack of shame in her desire for power and it's costs.

amber - share an unpopular opinion that you may have.

harassing male celebrities online like the cock jokes for john green and the omega jokes at misha collins are forms of sexual harassment and are just as disgusting and foul as any other form of online harassment done by men toward women. the fact that tumblr takes delight and humor in it is because we genuinely do not take male harassment seriously and/or there's an entitlement to objectify men when a parasocial relationship is involved. it's not funny and will always be super gross! point blank.

spice - have you ever encountered a house that you believed to be haunted?

the winchester mystery house, the stanley hotel, all abandoned highway houses, and my bedroom three weeks ago when a ghost came in and deadnamed me and wouldn't leave until I re-set my wards.

orchard - share one thing that you’d like to happen this autumn.

I want to get the equipment I need to start making noise/experimental music in my bedroom.

bonfire - describe your dream house.

a cabin the woods that I semi-built with my own hands. big windows that bring in lots of light. strange and comfortable furniture and furnishings. places for my rituals and my art and a basement dungeon that would scare anyone that broke into my home because I own an iron maiden or something.

cranberry - what’s one physical feature that you get complimented on?

lately it's been my green hair but usually it's either my freckles or the way that my eyes turn gold in the sun. one of my friend's in LA told me I looked like a supernatural creature under the right light and I'll always think about that.

maize - share the weirdest encounter you’ve had with a stranger on the street.

oh my god I have so many weird encounters with strangers. I think the weirdest to date is that when I was going into a crystal shop at an outdoor mall with my then partner a woman got on her knees and bowed to me several times because she found the way I spoke on the subject I was talking about well thought out and/or she thought that I looked cool. cannot fully remember due to the novelty of what was happening.

quilt - how do you take your tea (or coffee)?

usually black but if I have it I like adding heavy whipping cream (there are two wolves inside of me) I also love creamers and just finished an oat milk pumpkin spice for the season.

pumpkin - do you think that humans are inherently good or bad?

I don't think we're inherently good or bad but I do think that we are a community species with varying degrees of empathy and we don't want to see each other suffer if it's preventable.

ghost - is there someone that you miss having in your life?

when I burn a bridge I burn a bridge. you are never getting back in. that is to say - no. but I miss who they used to be to me.