The Monstrous-Feminine and the Politics of Trash in the Film Excision

Abstract

Richard Bates’ 2012 film Excision presents the life of alienated and troubled adolescent Pauline in three narrative layers seen in her reality, her prayers, and her dreams. With these representations as well as in her interactions with men and women, Pauline manipulates elements of the abject to control the behaviors, attitudes, and reactions of those around her. When analyzed through the perspective of Barbara Creed’s theory of the monstrous-feminine, wherein men and women in horror films shock and horrify for different reasons, Pauline proves to be a new sort of figure wherein elements of her monstrosity and horror are inextricable from one another.