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My Pure Joy Review

Initially, I thought the movie was well done in terms of production value, cinematography, and performances given by the cast, most notably Adam (Alexei Ryan). The ways in which Adama tortures and kills his victims were clever, creative, and reminiscent of the surrealist trend in recent horror films (The Strangers comes to mind). I will give James Cullen Bressack, the writer and director, credit for his artistic choices. However, the single most disturbing thing about this film has nothing really to do with the film itself or its intended impact, it has more to do with the way in which women are portrayed in the film. Before anyone immediately responds with “What did you expect? Women are always brutalized in horror films, deal with it,” I fully understand that horror is an outlet for exploring fear and violence in such a way as to examine it more fully than in any other type of film. But even in movies like Adam and his friends were discussing (Night of the Living Dead and Psycho) the female characters were fully developed as having complex emotions and fears like human beings are warranted to.

The women you see in this film are entirely disposable, it’s as if Bressack has never spent any time around women in his life, except in porn. The female characters only show up either to give blowjobs or get killed, and are at the mercy of the controlling men in their life. They express no will of their own, if you watch closely they just do what their told, with no strong emotion whatsoever. Of course, the obvious criticism here would be that of course any woman who comes into contact with a serial killer is not going to be treated well, but what’s being presented here as normality doesn’t seem to be a very desirable situation either. Case in point: (Cindy’s new boyfriend is even more controlling and abusive, she might as well have stayed with Adam.) If the line is blurred between normality and the uncanny, then I would say it’s not successful as a horror film unless the action behind it was deliberate enough to be making a social commentary out of the situation. Otherwise, it just reads as a film which glorifies violence against women.

Mitchell Wells

Founder and Editor in Chief of Horror Society. Self proclaimed Horror Movie Freak, Tech Geek, love indie films and all around nice kinda guy!!

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