officious seeing eye bitch

PLOPPED DOWN IN A BEAUTIFUL CARVED STUMP BENCH AT THE BOTANICAL GARDEN AND SAT. ON. MY. HAIR. 🎉

[ spoilers for heretic (2024) ]

i really think it's brilliant that sister barnes is so obviously set up from the get-go as The Final Girl™️ to the point where you're kind of rolling your eyes and waiting for sister paxton to be killed off so we can up the stakes and get to the real meat of the film and then nope!!!!!!!!! she dies at the halfway mark!!!!

she's prettier than sister paxton, more self assured and graceful. she's more worldly and experienced. she's better at navigating conversations and social situation, at talking to and charming strangers, at grounding and orienting herself. sister paxton is awkward, inappropriate, naive, ditzy, and irritating. and as soon as the two of them sit down you can see that mr. reed is drawn to the razor sharp dark doe-eyed brigette-bardot-bang'd brunette. he leans towards her, watches for her responses, challenges her directly, leers at her. she's the first to sense danger. she's the one to form their first escape plan. she and reed rally back and forth. she meets him toe to toe intellectually. shoots down his monologues. meets his challenge.

and everything that points to him selecting her as his final girl, to him seeing her as an equal, considering her a worthy opponent, courting her as his match, is all flase flags!! he kills her precisely because she is the sharper and more exceptional of the two. because she would be too much of a challenge!! because he's not looking for his brilliant clever fiesty plucky protag, he's looking for sheep!!!! weak willed shaky nervous wide eyed clay to mold!!!!!!!!!!!

it's SUCH a good fake out and it's such a good twist of what kind of villain mr. reed really is!!! and the plain, ditzy, awkward, bumbling girl he picks for empty dog kennel number nine ends up killing him anyway. CINEMA!!!!!!!!