Alucarda

the ‘vampiric hysterical girl’ trope was really sort of canonised by silas weir mitchell in his 1884 text ‘fat and blood’ - *‘a hysterical girl is…a vampire who sucks the blood of healthy people… where there is one hysterical girl there will be soon or late two sick women’* in this way, alucarda gives very carmilla-tease, with how she is a demonically passionate lesbian who is WAY too gay its contagious, but alucarda is just gay and silly not actually evil like mircalla is. just like laura, the lack of a mother (the lack of a mother is a gothic trope) leads to a lack of maternal protection from evil maleness that threatens to rid women of autonomy in the face of religion fuelled patriarchy. so ig alucarda = carmilla, and justine = laura? epic cool! i mean even in some other themes: science vs religion, purity culture, possession/corruption... anyway, the imagery in this film is great, esp the shot of all the tampon mummy nuns in the cave-from-the-descent looking ass church with all of the christ-bearing crucifixes hanging from the ceiling like those chinese sausages that air dry for weeks. the editing is direct, as is all of the symbolism, but never does it feel forced or overly simplified. the sound and music were really interesting too, loved all the synths. as always, love religious imagery and feminine eroticism in horror, so this was VERY much something i knew id like. just as i LOVED 'the devils', i LOVED this! to close, justine kinda looks like natasha lyonne like think about that...