Traditional backwoods horror (e.g., The Texas Chain Saw Massacre , Deliverance ) positions the urban protagonist as a victim of atavistic evil. Plank Face disrupts this: Nathan is not a heroic survivor but a passive vessel. The family—led by matriarch Big Mother (Betty Jeune)—does not simply torture him; they integrate him through ritualized abuse, sex, and labor. By the film’s climax, Nathan willingly adopts the family’s feral code, even killing an outsider. This narrative arc suggests that identity is not fixed but a survival mechanism: Nathan’s “self” dissolves because it offers no utility in his new environment.
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Scott Schirmer’s Plank Face (2016) operates at the intersection of backwoods horror, trauma narrative, and psychological body horror. Unlike traditional “hillbilly horror” that positions civilized protagonists against rural savagery, Plank Face subverts the genre by centering on the dissolution of the self. This paper argues that the film uses sensory deprivation, forced acclimation, and grotesque intimacy to explore how extreme trauma can rewire human identity, ultimately suggesting that “monstrosity” is a socially constructed label rather than an innate condition. Traditional backwoods horror (e
The Abject and the Animalistic: Deconstructing Identity and Trauma in Scott Schirmer’s “Plank Face” By the film’s climax, Nathan willingly adopts the
Plank Face is not a film about survival against monsters; it is a film about becoming one. By refusing clear moral binaries, it forces viewers to confront the fragility of the self. The film’s true horror lies not in the family’s brutality but in Nathan’s final, contented acceptance of it. In an era of discourse about trauma and resilience, Plank Face offers a bleak counterpoint: some wounds do not heal—they grow teeth.