Tuesday 8 October 2013

31 Horror Films in 31 Days Challenge, Film Nine: Cassadaga (2011)

This is yet another blog-along post where I'll be blogging along as I watch another horror film as part of the 31 Horror Films in 31 Days challenge. Warning: Since I'm blogging my thoughts whilst watching the film THERE WILL BE SPOILERS.

These are raw blog posts. I start and I write until I finish without any editing afterwards. I just post the raw thoughts from the film as they occur. I enter this film with absolutely no prior knowledge. Enjoy,

 This film comes with trigger warnings.

 So a rough synopsis of this film is that a young woman is pagued by the ghost of a murder victim and tries to go about solving the mystery of her death but winds up too close to the truth, 

 Woah! Even more warnings than Lovely Molly with this film!
Strong Language, Violence, Sexual Scenes, Mature Themes and Flashing Images.
Buckle in, people.

 10 seconds in: piss off, dreadful mother. Let your son wear a dress if he wants to. The start of this film feels a lot like the start of "Pieces", a horror film I watched the other day. Mother yells at son for something she perceives as a perversion which results in violence. OK so that was a truly uncomfortable first scene that's just begging for analysis with application of gender theory and psychological discussion. It's actually a potentially very upsetting scene.
Film slowly setting up... and now we're at the part where there's a seance. I'm sure if you were deaf and you heard the voice of a loved one for the first time before going deaf you'd show much more emotion as it would be an amazing and potentially shocking moment. Maybe you'd shed a tear or gasp and tell the people around you that you can hear something. I'm sure it'd be rather exciting. 
Uh oh. There's a character with my name and it looks like she's about to die...

 AH, NO. Giant marionette puppets made from human parts. Creeeepy. 

 So far this is already probably the most maggots I've ever seen used in one film.

Slight similarity to The Ring in that a young woman is being haunted by another young girl and is trying to "find" her body in an attempt to put her to rest and solve unfinished business. Sorry I've not written much, I'm filling in data for the movie over at the Super Scary blog. I'll have a post up about it later. My hopes are that you'll all join me so that we can help to create a comprehensive database to explore the impact and portrayals of race, gender and sexualised violence within horror films. 

 This is a seriously messed up film and is pretty offensive to the trans community. The killer is at the start of the film as a young boy however the child is in a dress and is seen playing with a doll. The mother enters and tells the boy to get out of the dress then cuts it up with scissors. We see a scene of a mother not allowing a child to explore their own gender identity and it then has dangerous repercussions within the film. This trope of the "cross dressing killer" is seriously harmful to the trans community. We see it here, we see Norman Bates dressed as his mother, we see it again and again. When the film is over I might write up a little something about the trope and why it's dangerous and offensive. When the killer stabs his victims, particularly the first time we see it, the action appears to be phallic and almost violently hypersexual. I didn't particularly enjoy this film but I'm sure that horror nuts out there will love it. It's got ghosts and gore aplenty. This is a messed up horror flick. 


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