Sightlines · reception

How Excision was received

2012 · Richard Bates Jr. · Excision on Sightlines

The arc

It split audiences at its Sundance 2012 midnight premiere — too gross for some, too arty for others — but a decade of word-of-mouth has turned it into one of the defining cult items of the 2010s indie-horror wave.

What’s debated

The perennial fight is whether it's genuinely affecting coming-of-age horror or just transgression for transgression's sake — with the gut-punch ending as Exhibit A for both sides.

Its footprint

AnnaLynne McCord's total deglam transformation — 90210 bombshell to greasy-haired outcast Pauline — is the thing everyone talks about first, and the film's lurid, blood-soaked dream-sequence imagery gets endlessly screencapped on horror Twitter and Letterboxd.

Where it stands

A certified cult object: a fixture of 'most disturbing movies' lists and a badge-of-honor watch in Letterboxd horror circles rather than a mainstream canon entry.

Did you know? Richard Bates Jr. stacked the adult cast with his cult-cinema heroes: John Waters plays a conservative reverend-slash-therapist, with Waters' own former star Traci Lords cast against type as the uptight suburban mother — plus Malcolm McDowell, Ray Wise and Marlee Matlin in the margins.

Named by the director

• Eyes Without a Face (1960) — Bates named Franju's film as a key influence and screened it for much of his crew.
• David Cronenberg — Cited by Bates as one of the biggest influences on Excision.
• Todd Solondz — Named by Bates among his biggest influences for the film's outcast coming-of-age register.
• John Hughes — Bates cited Hughes as a major influence on the film's teen-movie framework.
• Alejandro Jodorowsky — Named by Bates as one of the film's biggest influences.
• David LaChapelle — Bates said the film's hyper-stylized dream sequences were inspired by LaChapelle's imagery.
• John Waters — Bates described Waters as one of his heroes the film pays homage to — and cast him in it.