 There are a million things we tell ourselves when our emotions start to surface, especially when the timing is inconvenient. It’s easy to swallow it down like a too-big pill and to keep swallowing the phantom lump in our throats, because we busy ourselves with obligations. We prioritize our lives in such a way that puts our needs on the back burner, low heat and apply just enough attention that we don’t have to worry about it burning the kitchen down (metaphorically and literally, in some cases). It becomes second nature to remember we even have needs, never mind how to meet them; we’re doing everything we can just to survive another day in a world that wasn’t built for us.
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Body Count • Existential Dread • Retribution Reels • Time Capsule
I grew up in rural America, where many of the people I have met would consider the middle of nowhere, and yet, for reasons that none of us could really explain, I still felt the need to lock the door. Car door, front door, back door, garage door…windows. We had never experienced a break-in, and I could never articulate it, other than that the middle of nowhere is the perfect place to commit a crime. In retrospect, my proclivity to lock doors very well may have been heavily influenced by my personal interest in horror and true crime. Granted, more than once I was accused of trying to hide something for locking my car in the driveway, but overall, I think my family just added it to my long list of “quirks,” a blatant dismissal of a survival instinct that didn't align with the perceived safety and comfortability afforded to rural White America. In the middle of nowhere, the absence of accountability is often mistaken for peace, and we are conditioned to believe that our environment is an inherent shield against the types of crimes that “only happen in the city.” My gravitation toward toxic outcasts, on the other hand, was undoubtedly shaped by characters like David (Mark Wahlberg) in the movie Fear (1996).
Existential Dread • Body Count • Retribution Reels Sometimes it’s easy to award points for character depth or plot continuity; other times, a film can do everything "right" and still fail to resonate. As I’ve mentioned [in previous reviews], The Cell (2000) utterly ruined how I gauge a legitimately "good" movie. The Girl Who Got Away (2021) is a prime example of a technically solid flick that nonetheless misses the mark of a cinematic masterpiece.
It’s not often that I find a genuinely decent horror movie on Netflix. Nothing against the platform, but until recently, their horror and horror-adjacent releases often felt geared toward a "Young Adult" demographic—relying on sanitized tropes and rudimentary character development. However, The Girl Who Got Away distinguishes itself through a more sophisticated psychological lens. Comedic Carnage • Masterpiece Overlook As someone who laughs at the most grotesque and graphic scenes in everyone’s favourite horror films, I’ve never been a huge fan of comedy. I like to laugh, and I certainly understand the appeal, but the genre often feels forced. It frequently feels as though writers find one bankable trope and recycle the same plot, changing little more than the setting until the comedic factor is stretched far too thin.
Masterpiece Overlook • Time Capsule • Monstrous Menagerie
 There is a buzz developing around the systemic sexism that echoes the patriarchal delusion of male superiority. It is ironic how the same people posted at the top of the social hierarchy are the ones lost in the rose-coloured fog of dissonance. They see the inequity…backwards, of course, clinging to unearned authority over what’s “right.” Tensions build from every angle, and blame is cast on misandry as the antagonist. This mordant perspective, by hard-heartedly dismissing the lived experience of everyone else, fuels the very manifestation of antipathy towards cis men that it claims to oppose. It minimizes the fundamentally trauma-informed byproduct growing from the epicenter of the impossible demands of patriarchal social construction. Still, lack of accountability and the denial of science lead society down a darkening path of destruction—and the centuries-old self-deception peals, loud and oppressive. Society’s inescapable patriarchal structures inflict profound damage and enable severe, intersectional oppression against women and gender-nonconforming individuals—realities often dismissed by a misguided focus on misandry, underscoring an urgent need for accountability and genuine societal transformation.
People talk about the patriarchy like it signals male superiority, when in reality none of them can achieve, let alone define how it actually impacts their daily lives. They don’t name it, of course, but it bleeds into every conversation, every law, every social shift. Every day, a new parallel surfaces, begging for recognition, acknowledgement, and an end to the cycle. Democratic erosion, National Socialist propaganda that blatantly targets minority groups (e.g., autism, LGBTQIA+ individuals, non-White people, non-Christians, and women), and religious extremism are all too familiar in American politics today. The rise of White Christian Nationalism and other extremist ideologies echo the not-so-distant past, reminding us that our education system has always been manipulated to placate those most averse to a liberal agenda. Instead, we see a whitewashed curriculum overhaul that minimizes the struggles and oppression marginalized communities have faced throughout history. This gross perversion of history—which emphasizes American exceptionalism and exemplifies democratic erosion—further limits access to diverse perspectives and critical thinking, resurrecting a totalitarian rule that drips with patriarchal illusion. Right alongside this stark decline in social progress, democratic norms dwindle through voter suppression and election manipulation, the rampant spread of misinformation by those in power, and a multitude of discriminatory executive orders.
Extremism is on the rise. The too-frequent argument is that “it’s both sides,” which may be true—only if we ignore the fact that not only were right-wing extremists responsible for nineteen of twenty-two extremist-related murders in 2020, but investigations of domestic terrorism more than doubled over the next two years. Assumptions are made, by everyone, from time to time. Some are correct—if someone works at the local grocer, it’s pretty safe to assume they live nearby. But assuming to know someone simply because you know their name or, worse, because you know the people who sired them says a fair bit more about you than it does about them. Sure, in a perfect world everyone would share a strong, healthy relationship with their ‘family’—unfortunately, that is not often the case, and people see what they want to see. Many people who believe they have healthy relationships with their relatives fail to recognize deeply rooted co-dependent dynamics and generational trauma cycles. In many cases, they have to do mental gymnastics to justify the less than healthful interactions or core beliefs passed down from one generation to the next. This is evident in the way those same people always have some condescending remark or an attempt at insult in rebuttal, for being confronted or proven wildly misinformed.
That’s not to say that what they want to see is what they want to exemplify, but it is to say that most people seem to find it easier to subconsciously choose false narratives that support their own perception of reality. According to my explorations on the topic, sexual victimization has been around since the dawn of time. Today, “sexual victimization is highly prevalent in the United States, with 63% of women and 24% of men reporting experiences of sexual victimization in their lifetime” (Miller, 2017). Research published in the Journal of the American Heart Association finds that sexual violence is not only common but that survivors of sexual assault and workplace sexual harassment are at an increased risk of hypertension (States News, 2022). This research was supported by several other institutions. In today’s world, it is also important to understand that victimization is not solely a physical act. Image-based sexual abuse has also been documented, its “prevalence varies, owing to differences in definitions, criteria, and samples used” (Pedersen et al., 2023).
 Maybe I’m self-absorbed. Maybe I’m overly sensitive, bordering on neurotic, and completely off base. Perhaps, I’m jaded by being handed shit packaged as chocolate and being told to swallow it without reproach.
I read—a lot—though, admittedly, not as much as I’d like to. That’s only a half truth, I suppose, as in the whole truth I never stop reading. Articles, textbooks, studies, prose, comment sections, subtitles…but I don’t read as many books as I’d like. Suffice it to say, if I could, I’d probably waste my days away lost in book after book written a hundred years ago and undoubtedly find all of the dots that still connect in society today. I’m often told that I think too much into things, but the truth of it is that I never have to put much thought into making such connections. They glare at me in the face and scream for recognition. How, then, am I supposed to say nothing of it? And for what? To save face, to play politics? Silly me for expecting words to mean as they are defined, and for actions to align with proclamations. For a while, I considered that maybe it was the genres I favour or that I’d gotten myself into a centuries old echo chamber, but that seems more illogical still. My bookcase and shelves are tightly packed with everything from personal development and social commentary to contemporary literature and historical fiction to horror and crime…nevermind the occasional romance, the textbooks, and the dozens of meta-analyses I have on my external hard drive. It wasn’t all too long ago that my personal library alone could have gotten me committed to an asylum, when female independence was seen as madness. Nonbinary identity not withheld, the world sees me as female—and there are considerably worse things to be. The point still stands, I wasn’t born in a body that permits the power knowledge holds. My attempts to understand and engage with the world around me, here, are frequently met with dismissal and hostility, an air of superiority and contempt. |
Sheena MonsterThey/Them/Theirs 
Naming the things that society works hardest to ignore, to reclaim the humanity stripped by systemic deception.
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