Sorry I often feel like a private occult investigator around imdb forums. It is my duty to inform horror fans that this movie is not a horror movie, though I must admit it was a great movie with a disturbing end.
share[deleted]
" Horror Films are unsettling films designed to frighten and panic, cause dread and alarm, and to invoke our hidden worst fears, often in a terrifying, shocking finale, while captivating and entertaining us at the same time in a cathartic experience. Horror films effectively center on the dark side of life, the forbidden, and strange and alarming events. They deal with our most primal nature and its fears: our nightmares, our vulnerability, our alienation, our revulsions, our terror of the unknown, our fear of death and dismemberment, loss of identity, or fear of sexuality." (http://www.filmsite.org/horrorfilms.html).
I think that the disturbing nature of Excision makes it a horror movie. It may not have very many typical horror elements, but it leaves you feeling very uncomfortable and shocked. I also found it scary because I had a pretty bad relationship with my mother, but my little brother was perfect in her eyes. The movie made me think about how I could have turned into a monster like Pauline, and that made it horrifying for me. Even though I wouldn't have had a reason to perform major surgery on my brother, it's scary just to think that I could have turned into a person who is capable of what she did.
There are many disturbing movies, especially concerning the Nazi holocaust. Yet I wouldn't call them horror. I am just doing my duty for fellow horror fans: This movie is very similar to Donnie Darko, it has humor in it, yet it is more disturbing, especially (and maybe only) the ending. Other than that it is pretty much a teenager drama.
There are very weird horror movies crossing the boundries, being experimental, yet there is a reason why one still calls it a horror movie. Martyrs, High Tension, The Loved Ones, A Serbian Film, Frontiers - yet they are horror. This one is not.
[deleted]
Right. Its a tragedy in the classic sense.
share