Je veux ton amour et je veux ta revanche.

[pellnell]

I know there are people on my f-list who enjoy horror movies, people who love deep movies, and people who love both, so I feel like I have to ask:

Should I watch Lars von Trier's Antichrist?These are the things that concern me

Comments

[pellnell]

What a thoughtful response! I adore the horror genre, but I still get squeamish. There has to be something to recommend the movie to me though, regardless of its classification, usually the cinematography or art direction or something inventive about its narrative. Many of the horror films I love are ones that people hate, like the House of Wax remake (absolutely GORGEOUS color scheme, plus j'adore ambiguous incest in movies, so Flowers in the Attic), The Uninvited (ditto on the use of color), and Saw (mostly because of Shawnee Smith's character, who is an incredibly fascinating example of Stockholm Syndrome and non-exploitative self-mutilation on-screen). I also love movies that toe the line between horror and other genres, like Rosemary's Baby and the crazy British zombie film Let Sleeping Corpses Lie. That said, I understand why people don't like horror films, as they're profoundly affecting for many of the reasons why I'm unsure about watching Lars von Trier's movie

[pellnell]

Shit, Silent Hill and Resident Evil, the games look like they're so much scarier and even more cinematic than their film equivalents. I'm not gonna lie though, I bought the RE trilogy because of Milla Jovovich, Eric Mabius, and Ali Larter. Plus, the color scheme of blues and reds in the first film is jaw-dropping, and I love the whole Alice in Wonderland theme. I'm definitely worse about watching films that use cheap scares because I'm so easily scarable. The Silent Hill movie is one of the more disturbing films I've seen though, mostly because of its imagery and ambient sound. I remember going to see it on opening night and find it profoundly fucked-up, especially the bathroom scene and the flaying of the girl who looks like Saffron on Firefly. I also found it incredibly fucked-up that some people brought their small children to the movie. It pisses me off when parents are irresponsible about exposing their kids to violence.

If you love zombie films, you should definitely see Let Sleeping Corpses Lie. It is really violent,

[sandoz_iscariot]

I think, if that's your reaction to the trailer, it's probably not a good idea to see the full movie. But I couldn't get through Cannibal Holocaust, so you are possibly made of much stronger stuff than I.

[pellnell]

Yeah. One of the local theaters showed the trailer when we went to go see The Room and I had to leave the theater temporarily because I had such a crazy anxiety attack.

I've never- and probably never will- seen Cannibal Holocaust, but it really pisses me off when critics use the "torture porn" label to describe stuff like Hostel. I'm just like, "shit, you've clearly never seen films by directors who tortured animals in the name of art." Some of the imagery from Cannibal Holocaust is so affecting just to hear about or see secondhand in other movies, like Dario Argento's Mother of Tears, which is one of the most horrific films I've ever seen.

[sandoz_iscariot]

Ouch. I've had anxiety attacks watching movies too, and my personal feeling is that's it's not worth it, whatever other merits the movie might have. Plus extreme sexual violence against women is one of my "absolutely not" buttons. (and wow, of all movie trailers to show before The Room...)

Ah, I get what you mean about the torture porn label. I was really surprised by how tame Hostel was when I first saw it, at least in comparison to other films I know are lurking out there. And with some things, there's imagery that you just don't want in your head, even secondhand. I was pretty disturbed just reading plot descriptions in Sleazoid Express, so I'm made of pretty weak mettle for a horror/trash movie fan.

[pellnell]

Yeah, I get really affected by sexual violence on-screen. It's one of the most shocking forms of violence, I think, and a lot of directors don't know how to handle it. One of my favorite movies is Rob Zombie's Halloween, but I can't watch Michael Myers's escape scene on the DVD because it features such a brutal rape. The rape in Antichrist is perpetrated against a male, and I think people understand less how to handle male sexual assault. Most of the reviews I've read gloss over it.

(Maybe Antichrist would be more tolerable if Tommy Wiseau had written it? Although I've heard there's a lot of psychobabble in the film, and, c'mon, Wilhem Dafoe, you always play psychiatrist with us.)

I agree. It- and Saw- have become the poster children for torture porn, and while I still get queasy during the eye and genital bits, I feel like the films are relatively tame, considering the sort of violence in foreign films like Martyrs and even older Italian movies. I've never heard of that movie, but I think I'll put it on my never-to-watch

[taimoset]

try kids-in-mind.com

they usually post rundowns of violence and sex in movies.

[pellnell]

Wow, that site is incredibly thorough. It sort of reminds me of Plugged In, which is this Focus on the Family-run review publication that usually features crazy detailed run-downs of questionable content. Both sites appear to be silly quite often. Why is hugging someone considered sexual content?

[immortality]

Honestly, I hated the movie AntiChrist. It was slow and plodding and not at all ~scary~ or even un-nerving. I was just completely bored watching it, and not just because it had no elements of horror to speak of -- it was just boring as a movie. It did not have a plot that could withstand the length of the film. It probably would have worked better as a short story.

SPOILERS

So the woman was writing a paper about Devil worship -- or women accused of Devil worshiping -- so suddenly she goes off her rocker and becomes an agent of Satan (wtf). And when she's having really graphic sex with her husband one day, she lets/watches her son climb onto a desk and fall out a window. So what happens in the end, with the cutting of the sexual organs and all, is her ~punishment towards herself. Idgi, she could have just gotten up and closed the goddamn window.

/SPOILERSAll in all, the movie's crap. The violence at the end is completely unwarranted. I didn't flinch, but I knew it was coming, so whatever. I thought it was more disgusting to see

[pellnell]

Okay, so the violence is mainly right at the end, and you could tell it was coming? Lars von Trier's really going for sex = violence with this one, I think.

With Cannibal Holocaust, I do consider it torture porn because of the animals they killed for the film, but I know lots of people could really give a shit.

Yeah, I'm not sure what the title has to do with the film at all. I heard there's a video game continuation. Maybe that will explain?

[pellnell]

Yeah, I've read quite a bit about it. I think I probably will end up watching it though, but if I do, I'll be sure to post about it on here for people who are likewise squeamish.