Excision

Following a mentally disturbed teenage girl for 80 minutes, seeing her sex-and-death-intertwined fantasies, wincing at every twisted decision and cringing at the film's uncomfortable finale... Yeah, that was a fun sunday evening. It's not really a góód movie, but sometimes it's interesting to see how far a filmmaker is willing to take things. McCord does a great job at playing an impressively unappealing teenager, and seeing John Waters play a priest was hilarious.

Richard Bates goes completely, well, Norman Bates on the standard "Juno" plot about sarcastic misfit teenagers and just... eviscerates the everloving fuck out of it. Quite literally. McCord impresses me (though it's a weird metacommentary on the movie that they cast a supermodel to play a "plain" teenager), and you have to love the absolutely unblinking audacity of it, the way it basically lets the lead character take control of the story... though at the same time, come ON.

It tries so hard to be shocking and funny that it just comes off as irritating. The characters are stereotypes I've seen in countless movies, from the obnoxious main character to the overbearing and hysterical mother and so on. It had a couple of decent moments, though, and the lead actress fit her role really well - she made the movie tolerable.

The strength of McCord's character is that she proves herself capable of anything but restraint. It keeps the audience on their toes and clinging to every line as she foreshadows the explosion to come. Pauline isn't the cliche disaffected youth, she is aggressive and proactive, seeking solutions and calling for help-- its what sets her apart from her unsympathetic counterparts in the genre, she's far more compelling than Carrie and her ilk.

Interesting concept but plays heavily on shock value in uninspired dream sequences. The main actress plays her role well and helps tie this movie together laden with bizarre cameos from John Waters (as a priest!), Malcolm McDowell and Ray Wise. The movie almost works better as an(other) examination of teens in suburbia than a horror film, but the ending is fantastic and definitely left a mark on me. Too bad the lead up to that finale wasn't better.

Lacks any form of momentum and the writing of the main character is really ridiculous. It culminates in a half-decent ending but it doesn't justify the 70 minutes preceding it. Score is not a grade.

I certainly didn't like every aspect of this movie, but it was disturbing, memorable, interesting and very well-executed. The increasingly awkward family table scenes were really well done, the weird-ish dream scenes were beautifully disturbing and there's some great dark comedy as well. My general response though, could be summed up by "WHAT THE FUCK".

Eh teenagers, what are ya gonna do?

If you strip it down, it's a totally standard coming-of-age teen comedy. The only twist is that the protagonist has a paraphilia for gore. This does provide for many moments of cringe humor, if that's your thing, but I got bored and after a while it seemed to drag despite its fairly modest running time. Excision is peppered with appearances from John Waters, Malcolm McDowell and Ray Wise, but Traci Lords as the mom grabbed me the most. I may just have a thing for her since her porn years.

Incredibly unoriginal and ineffectual in its endless attempts to be shocking or racy. Its politics are deluded at best, but an early guest appearance by John Waters quickly acknowledges that at the very least, the filmmakers had watched a lot of trash film (not in the pejorative sense) and wanted to dump further trash onto the heap. The end result is somewhat entertaining, but doesn't go nearly far enough where it should. As such, the most butchered part of the film... is itself? I give up.

An interesting blend of snarky coming-of-age dramedy and bizarre, over-the-top gore. Since I happen to like both, the combination worked well enough for me to keep me interested throughout the whole thing. The wonderfully disturbing climax stayed with me afterwards, but unfortunately the rest of the movie leading up to it has turned out to be a bit forgettable in the long run. (3/5)

This was certainly intriguing, and quite unexpected. At the outset, it could’ve passed for pretty much any modern coming-of-age teen flick, but it really went off the reservation; I definitely got some Cronenberg vibes. McCord did a great job in the lead, and this was certainly capably made. Weird, uncomfortable, but quite compelling.

If anything I said has made you think that Excision is a film you should watch, go ahead and watch it because it's likely something you'll enjoy. If you've been repulsed and disturbed by what I've described, move on and don't look back, because you will have a terrible time. I enjoyed Excision, but my sense of humor is extremely warped. It has an undeniably great lead performance by AnnaLynne McCord, some powerful imagery, and a fantastic finale ... assuming you make it that far.

yeah... it's goodish. Some serious structural problems here. There are like 6 dinner scenes and there is really no plot build to anything.

Fantastically funny and cerebral film.

At its best, it's an innocent dose of suburban hysterics. At its worst, it feels like a sterile ripoff of many films that have come before it.

The Interesting: The protagonist just seems like another snarky-antihero-weirdo-outcast so by the time you realize her subtle descent into madness, it's already too late. The Bad: Lacks forward momentum The Good: the ending, acting, cameos, and special effects are solid.

#20#, exp3, rw2, story

yechhh, some nasty stuff goin on in this psycho shocker. The nasty girl problems/menstral cycal stuff was a bit much for me but the ending was super bad ass, i have mixed feelings about this one. Also the characters were very good!

Not entirely sure what to make of this. If you look past its horror premise then it really is just a standard teen comedy, and Bates doesn't do a good job of satirising said genre. The first half is pretty irritating but the film managed to win me over by the second. The fantasy sequences are beautiful, the cameos by McDowell & Waters were hilarious (especially Waters) and McCord, who carries the entire film, was absolutely fantastic. Loved the shit out of the ending.

Tries, but does not succeed. Better choice: Lucky McKee's MAY.

Not really a straight horror, more a character study of a weirdo. AnnaLynne McCord is brilliant and immensely entertaining as Pauline, one of my favourite characters in anything. I also appreciate the empathy with which the film treats all its characters, even ones which could easily have been one dimensional, it makes the ending hit much harder.

in the rearview it all feels contrived towards the disappointingly gratuitous climax, even as it veers all over the place tonally...

waste of time

Whose mind you pushed me into you damned director? Gotta take a bath.

Good cast, but the trials of an awkward teenager in suburban America seem too conventional, even with the blood-drench sex fantasies, so that the irrationality of the protagonist's final act seems more incongruous than shocking. She doesn't actually ever seem someone who wouldn't understand the medical realities in question, so I guess she has been revealed as more delusional than we thought - exactly as her to-be-despised- American-Beauty-style mother says - but just seems stupid.

Interesting as a prequel to Scorned (2013), a film that has less than a thousand viewers listed on letterboxd and only 25 here on criticker. So while that take may be interesting to next to no one, the film itself did not hold much for me as a standalone film, which is as was intended. Weird tone for a coming of age awkward/dark comedy coupled with a reputation for viscera that didn't do for me what I assumed it wanted to. Seriously though, follow this up with Scorned.

What the fuck? This is like if Cronenberg made a John Hughes film. It...certainly is something to behold.

Different, that's for sure. With some great people in in - Ray Wise, John Waters as a priest and Malcolm McDowell as a math teacher. Its worth watching, but don't go out of your way to do so

First Ranked on January 5th, 2013: 58 Second Ranking on May 12th, 2017: 76

The stylized gore scenes felt superfluous, serving mainly to appeal to people wanting to see some sick shit without any substance to ground it. The main character, although somewhat interesting, mostly rubbed me the wrong way. And that ending didn't live up to what I had come to expect over the course of the film. Maybe if we hadn't been spoiled by all the pointless gory dream sequences, which were much more shocking than the film's finale, the ending might have had the punch it was looking for.

okay

Disturbing and leads up to an ultra-finale finish. This movie missed something to keep it out of my favourites, but it's still shocking.

An interesting movie with an unnecessary and out-of-character ending. Both Lords and McCord characters are what makes this movie work.

Weirdest movie I've seen in a long time, but so so good nonetheless. There's a lot of weird gore, but that's not what makes the film so creepy... AnnaLynne McCord surprised me in her role, playing the deranged, borderline-sociopathic teenager exceptionally well!

Fun performance by AnnaLynne McCord. The surrealistic/overplayed and realistic/emotional parts didn't mix well, though. Maybe because there was no actual "mixing" going on. Rather an alternation from one to the other which seemed a little random/forced. Goes for the atmosphere as well as the characters(' behaviour). Yes, even considering the main character's obvious condition.

At first, I thought it would only be a film trying to shock and not provide any substance. Turns out, that was kind of the case... but there was also some actual artistic value to it all, and the final product is a flawed but interesting watch.