Viewed – 06 January 2013  Blu-ray

This was freaky.  A disturbed young woman, Pauline dreams of some day being a surgeon, whilst at the same time struggles to cope with school, bitchy class mates and an over bearing mother.  Yet her life is fairly all American conventional, it’s just her that doesn’t seem to fit in.  She also happens to have a younger sister, who is favored by their mother but suffers from cystic fibrosis.

From the off this is one of those arty horrors disguised as a teen movie, and is not for the squeamish. Pauline has various surreal dreams of performing operations on naked women, with copious amounts of blood and bodily organs.  It’s pretty disgusting, but shot with a macabre erotic-beauty that I couldn’t help but admire, sort of like a renaissance painting.  Directed in a quiet, cold tone by Richard Bates Jr and with a solid, creepy performance from Annalynne McCord, I found this fascinating but ultimately unfulfilling.   Just why Pauline is the way she is, was not explored, there was no background to the character and the movie reached its conclusion leaving this viewer wanting to know more – I half expected an epilogue which never came.  Acting wise its all fairly well delivered, with enjoyable appearances from the likes of Malcolm McDowell  Traci Lords and most notably genre director John Waters (Pink Flamingos) – showing exactly the kind of audience this one was aiming for.

So a strangely amusing, twisted take on teen movie conventions, and if like me you enjoy weird, gory movies you should still get some entertainment from this.  Yet despite aspirations, it’s no future cult classic.

Verdict:  2.5 /5