Welcome to Litsy!

This book was fascinating & beautifully executed. I found some of the statements (regarding either her personal history or the films) to be challenging, but I appreciated her frankness & vulnerability in what she shared, even if it was not written with sensitivity or political correctness in mind. The way she draws connections between her life & various horror & exploitation films, some of which are utterly disturbing, is just my cup of tea.

Got in some book mail! Horror is my favorite movie genre and I love learning about the histories!

It was informative about horror/exploitation movie history, and doubled my horror watchlist, but that couldn't make up for the bigotry (ableism, internalized misogyny, queerphobia, transmisogyny) and creepy freudianism that pervaded Janisse's analysis. She lives in a world where only a few kinds of people actually exist outside of the movies. I don't exist in her world.

The only sapphic movies the author even mentions are ones where the sapphic desire is presented as part of the violence, part of the "madness," part of the depravity, part of the fear value. And she swallows that conflation whole each time. I find it extremely hard to believe that, especially with her obsession with "rape revenge" films, she never saw even a neutral representation, but I guess those threaten her queerphobic narrative. ?

The author is incredibly weird about lesbians. I wish she'd talk more about movies and less about her life that I'm starting to care less and less about.

I'm enjoying learning about all these movies, (especially the giallo ones), even though the author is just a LITTLE too fond of Freud. 😝

Been told to read this and I'm so excited it came in the mail so I can.