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Have you recently gone to the movies (or rented on Netflix) and thought, “Dear Lord, why didn’t you warn me!” Yes, me too. So I thought, why not start a bi-monthly report here at The Designing Fairy, to warn my fellow sensitives and save them a ton of therapy.

This week’s selections: Bates Motel and The Awakening

photo credit: Netflix

• Netflix description: “Everyone knows what happened in Psycho, but this chilling series takes viewers inside Norman Bates‘ world before Marion Crane checked in.”

• Warnings posted: The show is listed under “scary and dark.” My gut should have alerted me since it’s not a happy bunny kind of subject.

• My warning: Don’t watch the Pilot. If you are a sensitive, you will need years of therapy to process the senseless violence you just witnessed for the sake of entertainment. *Spoiler alert* there’s a rape scene halfway through that can’t be stomached, and I do understand the writer’s motive including it to show the breakdown of the psychological state of Norman’s mom, but c’mon! The character committing the act was cartoonish, one-sided aggression/craziness and the act portrayed and showed in the movie, just out and out horrible. I can’t tell you if the rest of the Pilot was worse or better as I pretty much stop watching at that point and had to fill my mind up with happy things like dancing bunnies and happy wagging tails. (Several episodes of Adventureland seemed to help)

• Sensitive consensus: I talked to my friends on FB who all agreed that they also stopped watching after the senseless violence.

photo credit: Netflix

• Netflix description: “A haunted boarding school calls on Florence Cathcart, who disproves hoaxes for a living. But the strange place leads Cathcart to question rationality.”

• Warnings posted: It is listed as a horror movie and categorized as “chilling and suspenseful.”

• My warning: This was a really interesting plot for a ghost story and very clever. Many, in the reviews I read, compared it to The Others, which haunted you psychologically way after watching it.  The scary element isn’t too bad more like lots of “boo” moments. No visions that will stick in your mind until more toward the climax of the movie is a scene of sexual violence that matched Bates Motel. The character culprit was useless to the plot, the moment contradicted the story as the main character was rather powerful and strong, and viewers did not enjoy watching her helpless, at least I sure didn’t. I did enjoy the movie up until that point, and it was so distasteful it was like hearing someone write on a chalkboard with their nails.

What’s with it, Hollywood? A movie nowadays isn’t complete without violence to women? Rethink your writing. Then we all wonder why politics takes our rights away out from under us. As for you my fellow sensitives, stay away from these two and for scary, stick to old episodes of Goosebumps and Are You Afraid of the Dark?

Until next time, Fairy blessings,