Our friends at Monster Pictures have announced today that they will be releasing EXCISION, in select cinemas nationwide from 2 November 2012. Excisionis the story of Pauline (Anna Lynne McCord),
a delusional teenage outcast. Pauline picks scabs. Pauline dissects
road kill. Pauline fantasizes about performing surgery on strangers. Her
fascinations disturb her schoolmates and her parents, Phyllis (Traci Lords) and Bob (Roger Bart). No one understands Pauline except for Grace (Ariel Winter),
her younger sister who suffers from cystic fibrosis. An outcast at
school and at home, Pauline is convinced that the best way to repair her
estranged relationship with her family is to perform a risky operation
to save her sister’s life...
Starring AnnaLynne McCord (90210) as Pauline, Excision continues a long tradition of horror films with compelling female leads, such as Scream, the original Halloween, the original A Nightmare on Elm Street, The Birds, and Psycho. The film also stars Traci Lords (Cry Baby, Blade), Ariel Winter (Modern Family), Roger Bart (Desperate Housewives), Jeremy Sumpter (Friday Night Lights, Soul Surfer), Malcolm McDowell and John Waters.
EXCISION isRichard Bates Jr.’s directorial debut adapted from his highly praised short film, Excision,
which played in over 50 film festivals internationally and garnered 24
awards from festivals such as Austin Fantastic Fest, Sundance Film
Festival and Fantasia International Film Festival.
Excision will also make an number of appearances at Horror film festivals around the UK&Ireland, here's the dates:
CELLULOID SCREAMS Closing Gala, Sheffield Showroom – 28 October 2012
HORRORTHON, IFI, Dublin – 28 October 2012
DUNDEAD, at the DCA, Dundee - 28 October 2012
TWISTED CELLULOID, IFI, Triskel Christchurch – 30 October 2012
Ken Loach’s affable crime movie brings together a group of low-rent, ex-offenders through a community service course in Glasgow. Chief among them is Robbie (Paul Brannigan), a young father who, after barely avoiding a long custodial sentence, finds himself presented with a final chance to turn his faltering life around. Under the guidance of supervisor, Harry (John Henshaw), and with the help of new friends Mo (Jasmin Riggins), Albert (Gary Maitland) and Rhino (William Ruane), Robbie develops a passion for whisky, and with it a chance to escape his troubled past.
Loach has, for the most part, done a decent job of melding the contrasting elements of the down-at-heel kitchen sink drama, with the daft whimsy of a Highlands whisky heist. Brannigan, in particular, is successful in his ability to instil genuine empathy for a character who’s no angel himself. He’s also more than adequately aided by an amusing and largely comprehensible supporting cast, with Maitland standing out as the profoundly dim-witted Albert.
Loach’s ability to temper the comedy with the uglier elements of Robbie’s life, or vice versa, is evident for only two thirds of the story though. As the drink begins settle in the hearts and minds of the audience, Robbie’s past misconducts are conveniently washed-away in a tide of priceless Scotch. It reflects well on Loach and his cast then, that this shift from reality to fancy doesn’t entirely ruin the experience.
There’s more than enough spirit to be found at the bottom of the bottle, to redress the balance of a slightly lopsided story.
Extras on the DVD include a short making-of documentary, featuring interviews with Loach and the cast, who remark on his collaborative approach to filmmaking, as well as Brannigan’s real-life troubles, and his connection to his character.
Hysteria is a Carry On film with ambitions of feminism. As you might imagine, this is problematic, and it’s a problem the film never really solves. This lack of resolution, plus a few other niggles here and there, keeps me from declaring the film a success. But it’s not bad either. Clumsy and didactic the film may be, but its heart is definitely in the right place. What’s more, the spectacle of Victorian high society men confronting the female orgasm, is about as funny as you might expect.
Honestly, I wish I liked it more. The whole issue of hysteria (in essence ‘female emotional behaviour that men don’t understand’ repackaged as a medical condition, that could be cured by orgasm) is one of those pieces of historical silliness that I adore. It seems to me that narrative fiction always has this sombre, respectful, serious approach to history, as if it’s some grand old man whose every pronouncement must be treated with reverence. Whereas, if you actually study history at all, what you quickly find is that the old man is senile. History is composed of the actions of humans, and there is no constant like the silliness of humans. It’s nice to see this aspect of history getting some attention.
But there’s no escaping the fact that the story has problems.
On a basic level, matters work fairly well. Mortimer Granville (Hugh Dancy) is a young doctor of a forward-thinking persuasion, which makes him a pariah in the eyes of the medical establishment. Luckily for him, one Dr. Robert Dalrymple (Jonathan Pryce) requires an assistant. His clinic for the treatment of hysteria is very busy, and he (not to mention his patients) is in need of a helping hand. There Granville meets the Dalrymple daughters: Emily (Felicity Jones) who is the perfect example of Victorian womanhood, and Charlotte (Maggie Gyllenhaal), who is outspoken, passionate and, worst of all, associates with the poor. Granville, being a proper Victorian man, immediately falls for the former and disdains the latter.
So, Hysteria has the standard romance plot. But for all its lack of inspiration, it’s executed rather well. Dancy and Gyllenhaal have some nice adversarial chemistry, the plot is well paced and the characters mostly solidly constructed. A couple of comic reliefs, the (somewhat)ex-prostitute Molly (Sheridan Smith) and the noble sexual deviant Edmund St.John-Smythe (Rupert Everett) aren’t so much characters as walking jokes, as indeed are most of the hysteria patients. But that’s only to be expected. This is after all a funny film. The occasional thin character is a usual symptom of comedy.
But where this becomes problematic is with the film’s message. See, this is very much a historical film told through modern eyes, and as such, the heroes of the story are also those with a more ‘modern’ sensibility. This would be fine, if they didn’t keep aggressively flaunting it. Granville and Charlotte all but run around screaming ‘I support woman’s rights, free education, socialism, germ theory, the telephone, electricity- OH GOD I’M SO PROGRESSIVE”, like holding these beliefs is a big thing. But to modern ears, it sounds like a bunch of people crowing about how amazing it is that they think the sky is blue.
Of course, during the 1880s, believing such things was a Big Deal. But that’s because these beliefs were reactions against deeply entrenched social norms. Take woman’s rights for example. The concept that women were inferior to men was, in the 1880s, not some quaint, mockable custom. It was a societal norm that had existed for thousands of years. Challenging it is one of the most remarkable shifts human society has ever undergone. Considering the strength of the opposition, even the vague success of that challenge is incredible.
That is what any treatment of the growth of woman’s rights, or any of the other progressive movements of the 19th century, has to bring across: the image of a slingless David facing down a Goliath with a submachine gun. But Hysteria doesn’t. The film does give some sense of the opposition, don’t get me wrong. It has its fair share of establishment-minded characters. But in playing so many of these establishment viewpoints for laughs, mocking the Victorian men for getting so flustered about sex, laughing at their ‘scientific’ approach to the female orgasm, Hysteria undermines the seriousness of the establishment view. This would be fine, were the film a full comedy, but it also wants to make a serious point. It wants to state the importance of being progressive. Unfortunately it never manages to capture why being progressive so brave and necessary.
That’s not the only difficulty the film has. There’s a few hamfisted moments, where the characters make the classic ‘wild yet accurate’ speculations about what the future will be like, a joke that was already ancient in the 1880s. What’s more, Hysteria contains the worst jump cut I have ever seen. But on the whole, the film’s problem lies in its politics. The humour is grand: filthy, childish, charming stuff. The romance is engaging. But the film’s attempts to be serious are unsuccessful. All of which adds up to: entertaining, but not exactly good.
Blade), Ariel Winter (Modern Family), Roger Bart (Desperate Housewives), Jeremy Sumpter (Friday Night Lights, Soul Surfer), Malcolm McDowell and John Waters.
Blade), Ariel Winter (Modern Family), Roger Bart (Desperate Housewives), Jeremy Sumpter (Friday Night Lights, Soul Surfer), Malcolm McDowell and John Waters.
and blu-ray Here
