The various defenses of Splice, and why I hate them.

[obsession_inc]

In case you've missed this going around:

makesomelove wrote an (all-caps!) review of the movie Splice. Warning: triggery. Because, goddamn. I was sort of "jeez, do we really need to have this in all-caps?" when I started reading the review, but by the end of it all my hair was on end and my face was all D: and I felt, quite strongly, that all-caps didn't

Comments

[anonymous]

Another WTF defense: support Splice or you're killing indy cinema!

THE DEVIN'S ADVOCATE: HOW YOU CAN SAVE GOOD MOVIES THIS WEEKEND

[jood]

I am so fucking sick of intellectually lazy writers using rape as some kind of karmic punishment. To combine that rotted old chestnut with the man-as-sexual-predator and female-child-as-seductress motifs completes the trifecta of wrong.

The Let's Play House With A Baby Substitute trope actually isn't terribly new to horror. The very first thing that came to mind was the utterly bizarre but fascinating Czech film Otesánek (Little Otik). It uses at its root (you should pardon the pun) the same creepy folk legend that came into play in Pan's Labyrinth, which I have to assume served as the quintessential Let's Play House With a Baby Substitute for many years - and films - prior. I need to look this up. It is, nonetheless, as traditional as it can possibly be for gender roles, albeit in a very dark way.

[amonitrate]

you might be interested in this take on the painting you mention, Chris Ofili's "Holy Virgin Mary" -- http://www.artnet.com/magazine_pre2000/features/saltz/saltz10-08-99a.asp... )