How much horror is too much horror, exactly??
Darn it, I've done it again. I've spent the entire day so far (mind you, I got up at 11 after a wonderful sleep, so thankfully it's only been four hours or so) browsing IMDB forums on horror movies. I blame Emilie de Ravin for this. If she wasn't playing in the remake of The Hills Have Eyes I wouldn't have gone there to try and figure out if her character died or not, and then I wouldn't have branched off on other movies that people were using as examples in their arguments, including the original THHE to see whether it sounded better without the mutants (it does. It seems a very weird change to have made, considering everybody knows that normal looking human beings going bonkers and canibalistic is ten thousand times scarier than deformed beings) (I'd be much more tempted to watch Chucky than The Last House On The Left, from what I've read about both -- I wouldn't watch Last House even if you paid me, actually). From this sprouted an interesting beggining-of-a-discussion with Shazz about how showing more and more and more gore and sadism in movies would seem to be the announced death of the horror genre instead of its revival, considering there's only so much you can show before people develop an all-around immunity against any horror you can throw their way, whereas what you do not see will forever be stronger, scarier -- and will always allow movies to get lesser ratings, hence reaching a wider audience. Lots of people are talking about Straw Dogs as being just as sick as some of the most recent horror flicks, and I've seen Straw Dogs, so it can't have been gory or even bloody. I do remember my entire family gaping at the screen by the end of it, though, and even though I don't remember much of what happens in the movie. I would be wary about watching it alone, it was so powerfully done.
But now you get to see more blood and more guts and more violence with every new movie (not only horror movies), and most people seem to welcome this, saying that they like movies to "push the enveloppe". But I can't help but wonder, how much pushing is too much pushing? I've now read in detail about a certain scene in THHE which had many people walk out of the theaters completely outraged while others said it was a nice shocker, and even though at first I thought "Well, but isn't t boring when horror movies don't dare go all the way, when everybody knows just how horrible human beings can be in real life?", now I'm not sure anymore. It's not only about how it's filmed, because I do not think there is any way to film such a scene without somehow taking on a voyeur's clothes (I'm also thinking about the end of The Great Ecstasy of Robert Carmichael). But you can't say "Only a sick mind would want to see this", because hey, who in their right minds would want to see people's heads hacked off, guts spilling out of opened stomachs, eyes being plucked out of their orbits? No one should want to watch such things in as realistic a way as possible! And yet tons of people go to the movies daily to see such things, and nobody thinks it's really sick. So why would rape or the murder of a kid should not be on the list of stuff they can show without people batting an eyelash (and kids being murdered are actually featured in many older movies)? I would never ever want to see this, but hey, I don't like seeing pointless gore either.
The weirdest thing is, some of the sickest, most twisted movies aren't horror flicks (Irreversible, The Great Ecstasy..., Funny Games), and even though they unleash heated arguments, they seem to be widely accepted as works of art. Why would the same elements in a horror movie be controversial? I would have thought it'd be the opposite thing, considering horror flicks generally have no real grasp on reality, what with superstrong enemies and hideous monsters, whereas the twisted flicks are firlmy rooted in today's society (which is why they're so disturbing).
Any thoughts on the subject?
I'll add that it highly amuses me to speak about all those movies with assurance when, in point of fact, I've never seen any of them (but I truly have read an awful lot about a wide range of horror movies). It's such a shame that I am too chicken to actually watch them, because seriously, I would love to write a thesis or a book about horror/twisted movies. I find that whole culture utterly fascinating and come on, there's so much you could discuss about it!!
(and now i'm going out, because I feel completely claustrophobic right now. Stupid weather wasn't sunny enough to go all the way to the Luxembourg to take pictures. I need cheese and bread, but where could I go before that to make the trip longer? Hm, I'll just do the whole length of the Commerce street, finally get my gift from l'Occitane)
But now you get to see more blood and more guts and more violence with every new movie (not only horror movies), and most people seem to welcome this, saying that they like movies to "push the enveloppe". But I can't help but wonder, how much pushing is too much pushing? I've now read in detail about a certain scene in THHE which had many people walk out of the theaters completely outraged while others said it was a nice shocker, and even though at first I thought "Well, but isn't t boring when horror movies don't dare go all the way, when everybody knows just how horrible human beings can be in real life?", now I'm not sure anymore. It's not only about how it's filmed, because I do not think there is any way to film such a scene without somehow taking on a voyeur's clothes (I'm also thinking about the end of The Great Ecstasy of Robert Carmichael). But you can't say "Only a sick mind would want to see this", because hey, who in their right minds would want to see people's heads hacked off, guts spilling out of opened stomachs, eyes being plucked out of their orbits? No one should want to watch such things in as realistic a way as possible! And yet tons of people go to the movies daily to see such things, and nobody thinks it's really sick. So why would rape or the murder of a kid should not be on the list of stuff they can show without people batting an eyelash (and kids being murdered are actually featured in many older movies)? I would never ever want to see this, but hey, I don't like seeing pointless gore either.
The weirdest thing is, some of the sickest, most twisted movies aren't horror flicks (Irreversible, The Great Ecstasy..., Funny Games), and even though they unleash heated arguments, they seem to be widely accepted as works of art. Why would the same elements in a horror movie be controversial? I would have thought it'd be the opposite thing, considering horror flicks generally have no real grasp on reality, what with superstrong enemies and hideous monsters, whereas the twisted flicks are firlmy rooted in today's society (which is why they're so disturbing).
Any thoughts on the subject?
I'll add that it highly amuses me to speak about all those movies with assurance when, in point of fact, I've never seen any of them (but I truly have read an awful lot about a wide range of horror movies). It's such a shame that I am too chicken to actually watch them, because seriously, I would love to write a thesis or a book about horror/twisted movies. I find that whole culture utterly fascinating and come on, there's so much you could discuss about it!!
(and now i'm going out, because I feel completely claustrophobic right now. Stupid weather wasn't sunny enough to go all the way to the Luxembourg to take pictures. I need cheese and bread, but where could I go before that to make the trip longer? Hm, I'll just do the whole length of the Commerce street, finally get my gift from l'Occitane)