Meet the Final Girl
Formerly known as “About Me,” but let’s be real… I’d rather survive a slasher than write a resume.
Hi, I’m Gianna Kerivan—a psychology major, public & professional writing minor, horror film devotee, and unapologetic emotional spiral. I created this blog not because I think I have all the answers, but because horror gives me better questions.
When I say I love horror, I don’t mean just jump scares and haunted dolls. I mean the genre as a vessel for all the stuff we’re too scared to say out loud—the shame we bury, the grief we inherit, the rage we’re told to repress, and the darkness we pretend not to crave.
I believe that horror isn’t just about what makes us scream—it’s about what makes us feel, deeply and sometimes violently, when the lights go out.
This is me as a leopard, scary, right? I'd call this a SCARILY SERIOUS SERVE!
Why This Blog Exists
I Watched This So You Don’t Have To was born out of two things:
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My unhealthy tendency to emotionally unravel during movies, and
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My academic obsession with why horror works—psychologically, culturally, symbolically.
This blog is part critical analysis, part journal, part horror confessional booth. I use it to:
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Unpack trauma and moral disgust (Miller, Herz, Douglas—I see you)
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Explore how horror reflects mental health, gender, power, and identity
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Reflect on my own reactions to the films that disturb, fascinate, or haunt me
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Laugh, spiral, and occasionally sob over movies like Pearl, Hereditary, and Midsommar
It’s also a way to take academic writing and make it... less boring. I write like I talk: emotionally unstable but backed by citations. Whether I’m breaking down body horror or screaming about gaslighting in flower crowns, I want my reviews to feel inclusive, irreverent, and real.
What I care about
At the core of everything I write—whether it’s about decapitations or daddy issues—is a deep fascination with how we process pain. Horror gives us permission to look at what society tells us to hide: our guilt, our rage, our anxiety, our desire for control.
So I ask things like:
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Why do we root for the villain?
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What does it mean to be disgusted by someone?
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When does horror become healing?
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How does a scream on screen help us feel seen in real life?
These aren’t just reviews. They’re psychological excavations dressed in fake blood and dark humor. You’ve been warned.
My Horror DNA
What to Expect
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Favorite Subgenres: Psychological horror, feminist horror, body horror, trauma-core
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Frequent Themes in My Work: Shame, memory, gender performance, inherited grief, repression
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Academic Interests: Disgust psychology, moral judgment, trauma theory, and identity construction through media
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Most Cathartic Screaming Experience: The last 10 minutes of Hereditary
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Most Relatable Character: Pearl in Pearl (minus the murders… mostly)
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Movie That Lives in My Brain Rent-Free: Incident in a Ghostland
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If I Had a Superpower: Making horror movies part of required therapy
My posts are structured, but chaotic in tone. They blend:
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Film summary: Snappy and mildly unhinged
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Theme diagnosis: What’s going on under the surface
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Disgust rating: How cursed the movie made me feel
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Catharsis moment: The emotional gut-punch
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Analysis: Why it all matters—and why it hurt so good
I write for people who love horror, who are scared of horror, or who are just trying to understand why they cried during Midsommar and liked it.
Delving Deeper
Latest Reviews
Our signature horror scale
🎥 Film Summary
🧠 Theme Diagnosis
🤮 Disgust Rating
💥 Catharsis Moment
✍️ Why It Matters
Psychological Horror
Hereditary (2018)
🎥 A family breaks down emotionally and spiritually after a series of tragic events—plus demons.
🧠 Inherited trauma, maternal grief, loss of agency, and fear of becoming like our parents
🤮 4.5/5 – Screams, bugs, fire, decapitations—choose your fighter.
💥 Toni Collette’s dinner table meltdown is raw grief weaponized
✍️ Hereditary externalizes psychological pain into supernatural horror. It shows how unspoken trauma passes through generations, like a curse you didn’t know you were part of until it’s too late. Better fix those mommy issues!
The Babadook (2014)
🎥 A pop-up book becomes a metaphor for your repressed grief breaking down your bedroom door.
🧠 Depression, unprocessed loss, motherhood under pressure.
🤮 3/5 – It’s the sound design that’ll get you
💥 The moment Amelia finally screams back.
✍️ This is horror as metaphor, showing how refusing to confront trauma gives it power. By naming and facing the Babadook, she reclaims control.
Cam (2018)
🎥 A camgirl’s identity is stolen by a digital doppelgänger—and she can't log out of the nightmare.
🧠 Online identity, performance, objectification, and agency.
🤮 2.5/5 – Mostly digital dread with occasional jumpy moments.
💥 Realizing she’s been completely erased from her own platform.
✍️ Cam shows the horror of losing control over your own image—relevant to anyone who’s ever been perceived online.
mother! (2017)
🎥 A woman just wants to fix up her house in peace, but suddenly she’s Eve, Mary, and the entire Earth.
🧠 Environmental destruction, religious symbolism, creative exploitation.
🤮 4.5/5 – That baby scene. No explanation needed.
💥 Watching everything she’s built be destroyed by men who “love” her.
✍️ A biblical fever dream that’s more exhausting than terrifying—yet it’s powerful as a metaphor for emotional burnout and womanhood as constant sacrifice.
The House That Jack Built (2018)
🎥 A serial killer recounts his crimes while descending into Hell. Literally.
🧠 Narcissism, moral nihilism, artistic delusion.
🤮 4/5 – Graphic violence, especially against women.
💥 Jack’s delusion finally breaking under the weight of his “art.”
✍️ This film dares you to sympathize, then punishes you for it. It’s about how far society lets dangerous people go when they’re articulate.
Vivarium (2019)
🎥 A couple is trapped in a suburban hellscape raising a creature-child that screams like a dial-up modem.
🧠 Suburban entrapment (very relatable, shout out New Jersey), isolation, existential despair.
🤮 3/5 – It’s less gore, more “I want to peel my skin off.”
💥 When she realizes she’s aging unnaturally fast.
✍️ Vivarium is a Black Mirror-style horror about what happens when life feels like a trap disguised as the “American dream.”
Split (2016)
🎥 A man with dissociative identity disorder abducts teenage girls. Things go predictably downhill.
🧠 Trauma, fractured identity, survival instincts.
🤮 3/5 – Psychological intensity and disturbing body transformations.
💥 Casey’s final stare-down with Kevin.
✍️ While controversial in its portrayal of mental illness, Split explores how abuse shapes identity—and how control can be both lost and reclaimed.
Climax (2018)
🎥 Dance troupe’s afterparty turns into an acid trip straight into hell.
🧠 Groupthink, psychosis, loss of bodily autonomy.
🤮 4/5 – 4/5 – Grotesque and unrelenting once it kicks in (literally, haha ... i'm funny)
💥 Sofia Boutella’s slow, confused breakdown.
✍️ Climax is chaos in slow motion, a sensory overload that explores the horror of losing control—in a crowd.
The Invisible Man (2020)
🎥 An abuse survivor is haunted by her invisible ex-boyfriend, who everyone else thinks is dead.
🧠 Gaslighting, PTSD, disbelief of survivors.
🤮 4/5 – 3/5 – The restaurant scene is a true “holy sh*t” moment.
💥 When she finally turns the tables and becomes the invisible one.
✍️ An effective metaphor for how abuse lingers even when it’s “over”—and how society often refuses to see it.
Old (2021)
🎥 People on a secluded beach start aging rapidly. Kids become adults in under an hour. Time is a flesh-eating disease.
🧠 Aging anxiety, loss of control, ethical science.
🤮 3.5/5 – Body horror meets existential dread.
💥 When the young boy turns into a dying old man in minutes.
✍️ A messy but compelling story about the passage of time, and how helpless we are to stop it—even when we understand it.
Slasher Films
A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)
🎥 Freddy Krueger turns dreams into a bloody battleground—sweet dreams!
🧠 Fear of helplessness, trauma invasion, sleep as vulnerability.
🤮 4/5 – That body bag scene lives in my head rent-free.
💥 Nancy dragging Freddy into the real world and saying “not today, bitch.”
✍️ A classic that weaponizes dreams to explore how unresolved trauma haunts the psyche—literally and figuratively.
The Babysitter (2017)
🎥 A teenage boy discovers his hot babysitter is part of a blood cult. RIP puberty.
🧠 Manipulation, adolescent sexuality, betrayal by caretakers.
🤮 2.5/5 – It’s goofy gore, but nothing that’ll make you gag.
💥 When he weaponizes his own trauma and drives a car into the living room.
✍️ The Babysitter is a campy, colorful slasher that doesn’t take itself seriously—making it a fun ride through teen horror tropes.
31 (2016)
🎥 Five carnies are kidnapped and forced to survive murderous clowns, etc. in a death maze. As one does. I hate when this happens to me.
🧠 Survival instinct, sadistic entertainment, classism.
🤮 4.5/5 – Brutal kills, intense dread, and chaotic gore.
💥 Charly’s blood-soaked face staring down Doom-Head.
✍️ Rob Zombie’s most unrelenting film, 31 is a blood-soaked satire about violence as spectacle—and how brutal survival becomes an identity.
Happy Death Day (2017)
🎥 A college student relives the day she’s murdered—over and over. Sorority hell meets Groundhog Day.
🧠 Personal growth through trauma loops, self-worth, forgiveness.
🤮 2/5 – Surprisingly tame, but jumpy.
💥 When Tree decides to die on her own terms.
✍️ A slasher that uses its gimmick to explore personal accountability. Underneath the humor is real character development.
Happy Death Day 2U (2019)
🎥 Alternate timeline chaos and quantum physics. Still dying, still learning.
🧠 Identity, second chances, choosing your own story.
🤮 1.5/5 – This one’s more sci-fi comedy than horror.
💥 Tree’s choice to leave her mom behind in another dimension.
✍️ Less horror, more heart. A genre mash-up that shifts the conversation from survival to sacrifice.
Spiral: From the Book of Saw (2021)
🎥 A copycat Jigsaw targets dirty cops. Chris Rock investigates. Chaos ensues.
🧠 Justice, systemic corruption, cycles of violence.
🤮 3/5 – The traps still bite, but they don’t hit like the originals.
💥 That tongue trap? Unforgivable.
✍️ Though not perfect, Spiral tries to reframe the Saw narrative through the lens of police brutality and institutional accountability.
Ma (2019)
🎥 A lonely woman befriends teens to feel cool again, then turns into every high schooler's worst nightmare.
🧠 Repressed trauma, bullying, social exclusion.
🤮 3.5/5 – Octavia Spencer’s switch from sweet to psychotic is bone-chilling.
💥 “Don’t make me drink alone!” has never sounded so scary.
✍️ Ma is revenge-horror drenched in generational resentment. It’s what happens when someone never stops being the outcast.
Paranormal Horror
Hell House LLC (2015)
🎥 A haunted house attraction turns into a real nightmare, documented via found footage that should’ve stayed buried.
🧠 Ambition, denial of danger, commercializing fear.
🤮 3.5/5 – Creepy clowns, moving mannequins, and enough hallway horror to trigger agoraphobia.
💥 That slow pan in the basement where you realize—nope, that thing moved.
✍️ A masterclass in subtle dread, Hell House LLC critiques the cost of ignoring your instincts (and hiring goth interns to build your haunted attraction). Found footage done right.
Lights Out (2016)
🎥 A demon that can only move in the dark proves that therapy AND a good lamp could’ve saved lives.
🧠 Depression, intergenerational mental illness, denial.
🤮 2.5/5 – Most of the horror comes from quick, shadowy reveals.
💥 The moment the mother makes the ultimate sacrifice to break the cycle.
✍️ Lights Out is a literal metaphor for darkness creeping into families and minds. It's not just about light—it’s about recognition and confrontation of inherited despair.
The Pope’s Exorcist (2023)
🎥 Russell Crowe plays a Vespa-riding priest who treats exorcisms like casual errands.
🧠 Religious authority, possession guilt, spiritual bureaucracy.
🤮 3/5 – Demon snarls, child contortions, and a lot of Latin shouting.
💥 When the priest confronts his own past sins in the name of holy vengeance.
✍️ The Pope’s Exorcist feels like The Da Vinci Code and The Conjuring had a baby in a haunted cathedral. It’s part comedy, part classic possession horror—surprisingly fun with a side of Catholic trauma.
As Above, So Below (2014)
🎥 A group descends into the Paris catacombs only to discover hell is real, and it’s made of bones and regret.
🧠 Guilt, historical sins, Dante’s Inferno as a tourism warning.
🤮 3/5 – Claustrophobia, hallucinations, and stone-faced corpses.
💥 The mirror of guilt when they each start seeing the people they couldn’t save.
✍️ As Above, So Below combines archaeological thriller and mythological descent into a film that says: “What if National Treasure gave you a panic attack underground?”
The Boy (2016)
🎥 A nanny gets hired to babysit a porcelain doll. It goes… about as well as you’d expect.
🧠 Grief-fueled delusion, childhood trauma, manipulation.
🤮 2.5/5 – Mostly atmosphere until the third act twists the knife.
💥 When the doll turns out to be not so lifeless after all.
✍️ The Boy fakes you out with a supernatural façade only to give you a sweaty, emotionally repressed man hiding in the walls. Not ghostly—but deeply weird.
The Woman in Black (2012)
🎥 Daniel Radcliffe wanders through an empty house while a ghost screams silently at him from windows.
🧠 Parental loss, ghostly vengeance, isolation.
🤮 2.5/5 – Lots of eerie buildup, not much blood.
💥 That nursery scene where all the toys come to life.
✍️ The Woman in Black leans hard into gothic horror, blending emotional numbness with vintage-style ghost scares. It’s grief in Victorian lace.
Before I Wake (2016)
🎥 A foster child’s dreams manifest into reality—starting with butterflies, ending in death.
🧠 Loss, parenting grief, the emotional weight of dreams.
🤮 1.5/5 – It’s more tragic than terrifying.
💥 When the mother realizes what the boy’s dreams are protecting him from. |
✍️ Before I Wake is a soft horror with heart—it’s more about the fear of letting go than the fear of monsters. Sad, but strangely sweet.
Crimson Peak (2015)
🎥 A gothic romance with incest, ghosts, and industrial clay mines. Yes, really.
🧠 Romantic delusion, betrayal, feminist rage.
🤮 3/5 – The ghosts are oozy and gorgeous.
💥 When Edith finally fights back in that blood-red snow.
✍️ Crimson Peak is a Guillermo del Toro masterclass in ghostly aesthetics and repressed desire. A haunted house story wrapped in a corset and coated in crimson.
Rosemary’s Baby (1968)
🎥 A woman becomes pregnant with Satan’s child and everyone is weirdly chill about it.
🧠 Reproductive autonomy, medical gaslighting, satanic paranoia.
🤮 2.5/5 – It’s psychological unease more than gore.
💥 “What have you done to its eyes?!”
✍️ A slow-burn masterpiece in bodily horror, Rosemary’s Baby is about the ultimate betrayal: when your own body becomes a battleground—and everyone you trust is in on it.
COMING SOON
Zombie, Found Footage, Vampire, Gore
Disgust 101 Glossary
Contamination Disgust
The fear of being infected, dirtied, or corrupted. Think: rotting flesh, spoiled food, bodily fluids. (See: The Fly, Evil Dead)
Moral Disgust
When people feel revulsion at perceived ethical violations—like betrayal, injustice, or sadism. Often tied to outrage. (See: Salò, The House That Jack Built)
Animal-Reminder Disgust
Disgust that comes from confronting our biological similarity to animals—sex, death, or bodily functions. (See: Cannibal Holocaust, The Human Centipede)
Taboo Violation
A concept from cultural theory where disgust arises from social boundaries being broken (e.g., incest, necrophilia, cannibalism). (See: Martyrs)
Catharsis
The psychological release that happens after intense emotional tension. Horror often provides this through fear, violence, or justice. (See: Pearl, Hereditary)
Repression
When trauma, memory, or shame is buried in the unconscious. Horror often dramatizes its return. (See: The Babadook)
Body Horror
A subgenre and concept where fear comes from the violation or mutation of the human body. (See: The Fly, Split)