Make-Out With Violence: Return Of The Emo Dead

Trauma doesn’t visit youth lightly. It takes advantage, sinking its teeth deeply into unblunted sensitivities, unknitted wounds, and unexpected realities. The pain is more than just raw; it’s unwieldy, an emotional artifact of such size and shape that untested arms struggle to wrap around it. For the first twenty-five minutes of Make-Out With Violence, that sensation is evoked so tangibly that I was transported, floating on a lazy river of adolescent longing and dread. Those opening scenes –bathed in the gold and crimson of perpetual sunset– capture and embellish feelings so dark and painful that they can only be properly viewed through the dreamy haze of lost summer afternoons.