Excision (2012)

I love AnnaLynne McCord, ever since her days playing Eden Lord, a complete and total crazypants on Nip/Tuck.  She actually was in a horror movie before that, Day of the Dead, but I seem to have forgotten that.  The thing about Anna Lynne is that she is quite beautiful, albeit runway-skinny, but Excision managed to make her look like a straight-up troll.

Freaky imagery and jittery people a la Japanese horror really freak me out, so I can tell from the start that this flick is going to give me the willies.  Pauline (McCord) is an outcast, at both school and home.  Her mom (Traci Lords) and dad (Roger Bart) are at odds and constantly arguing.  Her sister, Grace (Ariel Winters) is her antithesis, always looking perfectly put together and browsing bridal magazines while she emulates popular girls at school.  She also has cystic fibrosis, which plays an increasing role throughout the film.  A couple of other random appearances in this movie -- John Waters plays a minister, and Malcom McDowell plays a math teacher. 

Although Pauline is obviously awkward, she certainly isn't a wallflower.  She insults popular girls, and propositions guys for sex, which she wishes to have while on her period.  She dreams of being a surgeon, and in her dreams, she is beautiful, powerful, and often blood-soaked.  Especially when banging this poor guy when he doesn't know she's on her period. You don't lie to a dude about that.  

Pauline falls deeper into her self-obsession and random destructiveness -- chucking food at her mom, carving a cross into her skin, puking on girls at school, and just being a general douchecanoe.  But within all her weird behavior, she seems to have an ulterior motive that she wishes to be for the better.

It's hard to say how I felt about this movie.  It was interesting and visually arresting, and the acting was impressive.  The ending was probably the best part of the movie, and kind of came out of nowhere despite Pauline's batshit craziness throughout.  As much as I loved the ending, the movie lost me kinda halfway through and I spent about 20 minutes feeling sort of pukey and wishing it would be over.  So I was kind of 50/50 on this whole thing.  The freaky imagery and overall story was cool, but it just sort of dragged in the middle and got annoying and overly gross at points.  Interested to see what others thought of this. 

"Your vagina looks like a diseased axe wound."