Critic Reviews
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Nigel Floyd, Time Out
An overripe mélange of Cronenbergian 'body horror' and alienated Lynchian weirdness.
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Robert Koehler, Variety
Excision is technically polished juvenilia that provokes without resonance.
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Antonia Quirke, Financial Times
McCord's elfin face has been transformed here with fake heavy eyebrows into something disturbingly simian and her low, uncouth voice provides a really weird sexual charge.
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Matt Donato, We Got This Covered
Excision isn't for the weak of heart or those hoping for a simple-minded watch, but can most certainly be a rewarding endeavor for any viewer needing a good character piece full of personalities worth a good psycho-analysis.
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Rachel Cooke, Observer [UK]
I liked this teen comedy-horror flick an awful lot. But then I'm warped.
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Rich Cline, Contactmusic.com
There's an element of parody to this jet-black comedy, but the film is so creepy that it gets under our skin.
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Anton Bitel, MovieScope
charting the horrors of adolescent alienation... writer/director Richard Bates Jr. is the exciting new face of disturbing, demented psychodrama.
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Steve Rose, Guardian [UK]
It could have been David Cronenberg meets Todd Solondz, but ends up more of a cautionary cartoon on things you shouldn't try at home.
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Anton Bitel, Little White Lies
This disturbing, demented psychodrama cuts to the heart of teen growing pains.
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Michael Papadopoulos, Sky Movies
You wait years for one quirky, necrophiliac, indie horror to arrive and then...well, only one turns up. Excision is probably why.
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Andy Lea, Daily Star
A very strange and rather disgusting indie thriller.
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Eddie Harrison, The List
It won't be to many people's taste, but for those with strong stomachs, Excision presents a strain of horror that's grounded in real life, and one with more potency that most conventional slasher/torture fare.
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Rosie Fletcher, Total Film
Brave, transgressive, disgusting, thrilling - and boasting a 90210-defying turn from an uglified AnnaLynne McCord - Excision could have been this generation's Carrie.
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Kim Newman, Empire Magazine
Like the lovechild of Carrie and Napoleon Dynamite, Pauline is the oddball hero of a truly impressive, eccentric teen horror.
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Simon Foster, Screen-Space
Bates' piercing originality and keen eye for framing and ear for dialogue sets it own precedents, standing tall on the stooped shoulders of Pauline and her teen-dream bloodlust.
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Simon Miraudo, Quickflix
Excision is no horror movie, but rather, a blood-strewn black comedy. It's an uneasy tone to strike, but Bates finds the right balance with his sharp script and just enough underlying tension.
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Erik Childress, eFilmCritic.com
A dark comedy that may not quite be Lucky McKee's masterful May but should earn fans along the lines of Ginger Snaps and Teeth
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Chris Bumbray, JoBlo's Movie Emporium
While it's more than a little sick, and will likely leave you queasy by the time the credits roll, EXCISION is nonetheless a truly unique horror ride into the scariest of all places- the mind of a teenaged misfit.
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Scott Weinberg, FEARnet
It's the take-no-prisoners enthusiasm with which Bates leaps into his suburban nightmare that makes Excision so interesting.
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Nathan Rabin, AV Club
Excision is a supremely nasty piece of work in the best way possible.
Read all 20 critic reviews
Featured Audience Ratings
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Like a blending of Solondz and Jodorowsky, Bates' debut is a derivative piece of high-school horror in the vein of "Donnie Darko". McCord plays a despicable teen who displays contempt for everything and everyone around her. With a view to saving her cystic fibrosis… More
Like a blending of Solondz and Jodorowsky, Bates' debut is a derivative piece of high-school horror in the vein of "Donnie Darko". McCord plays a despicable teen who displays contempt for everything and everyone around her. With a view to saving her cystic fibrosis suffering sister, she obsesses over surgery texts. In a piece of ironic casting, Lords is fantastic as her conservative mother but the casting choices reveal Bates intent to make a "cult movie", not something you can create on purpose.
There are moments of bad taste seemingly designed solely for shock value, worst of all a dream sequence involving a microwaved foetus. At only eighty minutes I suspect there are even more atrocities awaiting restoration for the DVD release. No doubt this will become a minor hit among a certain type of teen, those who purposely exclude themselves from society in an attempt to appear individual. Grown-ups are best off avoiding however.
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AnnaLynne McCord and Traci Lords are extraordinary in this disturbingly funny and nightmarish cross between "May" and "Carrie". Highly stylised, at times almost fairy-tale like in execution, "Excision" definitely won't be for everyone but it is an… More
AnnaLynne McCord and Traci Lords are extraordinary in this disturbingly funny and nightmarish cross between "May" and "Carrie". Highly stylised, at times almost fairy-tale like in execution, "Excision" definitely won't be for everyone but it is an extremely accomplished piece.
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Teen angst and psychosexual gore? Sign me up. Excision worked in all the right ways. It took proto-typical artsy gore to an entirely new level that seemed almost ethereal. The way it fit into a stereotypically dark goth girl was both entertaining and psychologically distressing, up to… More
Teen angst and psychosexual gore? Sign me up. Excision worked in all the right ways. It took proto-typical artsy gore to an entirely new level that seemed almost ethereal. The way it fit into a stereotypically dark goth girl was both entertaining and psychologically distressing, up to the last 5 minutes that still have me in a fit of rage. This film is the Carrie/Donnie Darko of a desensitized generation, and it's great.
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Wait wait.... Annalynne McCord can act?!? And carry and entire movie on her shoulders with finesse, incredible detail to her character, amazing body language on a pretty difficult role? Wow! Please give her more decent roles like this, we got a little unpolished gem in the making.… More
Wait wait.... Annalynne McCord can act?!? And carry and entire movie on her shoulders with finesse, incredible detail to her character, amazing body language on a pretty difficult role? Wow! Please give her more decent roles like this, we got a little unpolished gem in the making.
The rest... the rest is a bit of an uneven game. It's darkly funny and dramatic on equal measures but it's also repetitive and boring at times. Too many breakfast scenes that don't move the flick forward. The contrast between the suburban settings and the very Jodorowski allucinations is very well pulled but I wanted a bit more from both ends, without being stretched for so much pointlessly.
Worth a shot for fans of the genre and to discover Annalynne in an unbelievable role that few could've pulled so well.
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