#movie commentary

[kysonstage]

just watched obsession and holy fucking shit this movie is terrifying and i love it

gen one of my favorite horror movies of all time

It's so crazy, i saw some people say the nikki counterpart is a "demon" and i was ok with that, but then someone pointed out how it wasn't anything like that, but instead a literal personification of Bear's wish, that gradually does more fucked up things and gets worse because it is cursed with a feeling of "love" (limerence) and obssesion for bear so strong and unnatural that it can't ever be truly reciprocated under normal circumstances (not to mention Bear never even loved either Nikki or the Counterpart).

and i thought that was so much more interesting tbh, it's an inhuman supernatural existence made OUT OF pure obssesion, created BY Bear's own obsession towards his idea of Nikki, that is literally such a cool concept and trying to understand how this Counterpart actually works and how it thinks and the juxtaposition between that and the real Nikki was the coolest part of the movie for me.

also, Nikki, poor Nikki omg

the final scene at the end with her screaming while credits play? horrifying. genuinely haunting. i love it more than anything

there are moments in the movie where it almost seems like the counterpart is kind of """"influenced"""" by Nikki, maybe? not like literally or consciously of course, the real her was terrified, but in the sense that it feels as if the counterpart really is a weird mix of Bear's idea of Nikki, the wish he made, and some of what the real Nikki thinks about him.

it's a mess, Bear is terrible

also Inde Navarrete is a great actress and i can't believe I had never even heard of her, I'll be sure to check some more of her work later

[ctrl-shift-alt-9]

Just popped in to say I love your takes on Simon and I hope you're not getting any major hate or harassment from others. I think some of the fandom might feel uncomfortable grasping his past actions, and having to reconcile that yeah, Simon is.... extremely complicated and nuanced. He did awful things, he is objectively a reprehensible and evil person, but at the same time, it's very hard to just slap on those labels and call it a day with the context of Iron Lung's universe.

It's meant to be difficult to discern! The movie is inviting people to really scrutinise the lore, and have to grasp that in times of survival, morality will be cannibalized first. I think the fact that Simon managed to dig through the muck that is The Butcher, and come out cradling his remorse and his hope is such a great character concept, and I'm so glad there's others who see that too!

It's unfortunate that fandoms tend to box characters because I love how utterly messy Simon is. I find it so fun to pull this man apart. He sucks and he's a bitch and he's also the most interesting little bug I'm shaking in my jar right now.

Thanks for the compliments.

Unfortunately, yeah I have to dig through hate sometimes, but it's alright. I'm doing this for the love of the game!

I've repeatedly been "corrected" on calling Simon "evil". I think you're the only other person who has also said it with their full chest. Simon is technically the villain in Iron Lung, from the COI's perspective.

But, see, there's where the nuance hits, because he still does not deserve what happened to him despite that.

I agree with you on that the fandom is having a hard time grasping Simon for what he is. Though, I'm not discrediting the fact that there are many beautiful and wonderful people who have accepted Iron Lung's nuance, and Simon for the kind of monster he once was.

The whole thing is a thought experiment on the audience. There are some people who will be 100% Butcher apologists. There will be people who lean into that middle ground. There will be people who see Simon as someone who deserved what happened to him. Mark knew he would be dividing his audience on that front, and it's glaringly obvious this was a way to start discourse so people would talk about his movie more.

I think that Simon is very strong for choosing to step away from the Butcher, even if it meant surrendering and getting sent straight to hell.

But, ohh yeah, I'm also a messy Simon lover. Love me some muddled emotional turmoil.

Wait, that came out wrong-

[veradraven]

this scene in i love boosters...i love how it's the employees that are wearing black and brown that are the first ones to protest their working conditions before the ones wearing other colors eventually join in... something something it's always black and brown people of color who had to be the first ones to begin the fight for their rights way before anyone else decided to join and help...boots riley this commentary!!

[shyjusticewarrior]

Obsession is, among other things, a cautionary tale about automatically assuming the best in men and writing off women as crazy.

Then people saw posts saying "Bear is the villain and you shouldn't romanticize him" and decided that wasn't happening and those posts must be full of shit.

You guys are literally making that same mistake, literally doing what the characters did.

[tupik-the-blade-runner-guy]

I don't know if I'm the only one who thinks like this but I feel like Freysa (I can't remember how her name is spelled I'm sorry) saying "oh, you imagined it was you? Oh you did. You did" was way more painful for K than if she just didn't say anything. If she didn't acknowledge it at all and tried to earn his trust.

Cuz like. He's standing there bleeding looking at the woman who saw that child being born in real time and it seems like she's the answer to all his questions. And then Freysa says it was only a girl. No boy, no twin. So he's absolutely shattered. But she doesn't know why he's upset or what his mission even was let alone that he thought he was the 'lost' child. But she figures that out quietly and still chooses to let him down like that. And that was a hard let down. I get why she did that, she didn't have time to consider and probably thought her later words of "we all wish it was us" and "dying for the right cause is the most human thing we can do" would soften it and tell him he can still earn the humanity, but I don't think she understood just how monumental that realization was for him. And I don't think she knew for a fact that it would get him on their side. It definitely would have been way less painful if she didn't acknowledge his realization and just said everything else and he would've still gone with them. Because he still would've been the human he thought he was and would be considered the last piece for their revolution. And it would've been a different story maybe (I would expand but I don't have the words for it).

But instead he's basically dropped into ice cold water when she acknowledges that he wasn't that boy, he thought wrong, he wasn't the prophecy he thought he was. When she acknowledges all of that it's such a stab to hear those words. You know sometimes when something terrible happens but you don't process it as being that bad, but then someone says something about it or tells you that it definitely was bad, and then everything comes crashing down on you? That feeling of words being put to feelings? That's what happens in that moment when Freysa says "oh you did. You did [think it was you]". Because it confirms the most expected and worst outcome for him. That confirms his hope was for nothing.

And it's so painful.

It hurts so bad because it's true.

I dunno maybe it's just me, but I really really have that vibe. That if she didn't acknowledge his words about a boy and left it at "that was just part of the plan" it wouldn't be so shattering.

And what I mean to say with this is that I'm glad the movie did this by the way. If she didn't say it, it wouldn't be the same story. It's so devastating and that's good from a plot standpoint. From the movie standpoint it's one of the most emotional moments. And I fucking love it.

I love love love the sinking cold feeling you get when you hear those words and when K just drops down. I love how that small scene stabs. I love how they don't spell anything out and yet it hits you. I love how it's done.

I dunno if any of this makes sense at all.

God damn it I'm ill about this movie

[dustantlers]

don't get me wrong. i love the original jennifer's body, possibly more than the next person. so i'm coming from a place of admiration when i say that making a sequel takes away from the already well-executed allegory of the first film.

everyone is entitled to their own interpretation. that being said, it's widely accepted that jennifer being sacrificed serves as a thematic mirror for sexual trauma. she was a girl possessed. her autonomy was stripped away. she was made to carry out demonically horrendous acts. her world ended right then and there. she quite literally wasn't the same person anymore. after going through something detrimental, it's how many people describe feeling. so, intentional or not, this parallel brings so much more depth to the storyline.

even though her physical body dosen't drop dead until much later in the film, it was still a direct effect of what the band did to her. making a sequel wherein she returns as seemingly herself feels redundant. her death, though messy and tragic, provided her character with a clean and conclusive ending. it was the only way what was happening to jennifer could be stopped and now she's thrown back together to live through more, for what, kicks? it defeats the sacrificial lamb narrative, the irony of her dying for a group of losers' shallow wish.

i feel the same way about characters like jane hopper, whose death was also made to be ambiguous and questioned. as much as i love her dearly, other characters canonically see her wandering the world alone and never being fully satisfied. the last scene we see her in features her looking off into the distance at two waterfalls, when she's only ever wanted to live someplace with three. it was a conscious decision made by the writers, considering they could've easily edited a third one in and fulfill her wish. all she can do is sigh and ground herself in that reality.

i worry something similar will happen to jennifer. that she won't be able to find her footing after her supposed-death-experience. not to mention continuity wise, she'd have to face the federal consequences of cannibalizing those boys.

these are just some thoughts i've had since the announcement of a second part. i'm open to discussion, so feel free to share your own! i'm personally enamored by the unlikely possibility of jenn spending the entirety of the film as needy's hallucination. and hey, beyond excited to have megan and amanda together on my screen again :-) i will not be surprised in the slightest if i end up loving the film, i mean, come on! imagine if your lesbian awakening had a sequel and they literally revive your fave to undoom your yuri. it dosen't get any better than that.

[hloyf]

You can tell how many years ago video from dylanisintrouble was posted by his level of paleness

[fluffycakesistainted]

The way (with Justine being adapted out) Elizabeth Harlander is the sole significant female presence in Frankenstein 2025 (after Claire Frankenstein in the prologue). So she's nearly the only embodiment of the Feminine in the story. She's all the Feminine.

She's the Feminine as Other. She's the Maternal (to the point of the same actress also portraying the literal Mother). There's Victor's Oedipal transference. Then she's the first to show compassion to the Creature and advocate for him, thematically calling to mind Claire with her arms wrapped protectively around young Victor as they greet Leopold's return; with Elizabeth, The Creature reenacts the "We're the same" glove removal he remembered from Victor, then she teaches him his second word/name after "Victor", her own--all effectively placing her as the nurturing maternal figure to Victor's toxic paternal figure.

She's Bridal, to all the main male characters apart from her uncle--and even he at one point offered her up as a bride. The desired to Victor, the intended to William, and, near the end, the symbolic to the Creature, with "death and the maiden" overtones; where almost immediately her wedding gown becomes stained with the blood red of the Mother. Ironically, by Victor's own hand, years after accusing his own father of being responsible for his mother's death--and effectively ripping away his Anima: "My mother, whom I had come to consider a part of my very self..."

~~~~~

Edit: "I came to see [Elizabeth] as this montage of femininity, where she isn't just one thing. And one side of her is this incredibly maternal, nurturing aspect to her. (Mia Goth, Happy Sad Confused)