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Written by 3wiseasses - View Profile
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Thursday, 17 May 2007 |
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Nope, we're not talking "Apocalypse Now!" We're talking about straight-up horror movies. And we even work in a discussion about censorship.
Dan:
There's only an occasional time when I feel old, and usually it's when I hear songs on the classic rock station that were hits when I was going to high school.
But I felt a little old while watching "Saw 3," and it's probably because I was mumbling "Back in my Day."
Back in my day, horror movies did not show women's ribs getting torn out of her sides. They did not show a man getting each limb twisted off one at a time. They did not show brain surgery in all it's full glory. They did not show a man's limbs and guts blown all over a room. They did not show a man squishing and breaking his foot over and over with a toilet lid under he slipped it through a chain link.
Sure, horror movies were gory. I mean, duh. That's part of the scare and, dare I say it, part of the fun.
But back in my day, they weren't nearly as graphic as they are now. After watching "Hostel" and now "Saw 3" I wondered at times if snuff films wouldn't be any worse. That's what I felt when I was watching these movies, with graphic, bloody scene after graphic, bloody scene of torture, that they were just glossy snuff films.
There are many disturbing parts about this. One is I'm a horror veteran, reading all of Stephen King's books, many of Dean Koontz's and watching hundreds of good horror flicks. And yet this blood is getting to me. What are we desensitizing our kids to now? And I'm a parent and will soon be a parent of twins. What will films be like in 15 years when they're going to movies with their friends? Faces of Death part 25? I mean all that has to have some effect on them, right? At least a little?
Two is I realize I was watching the unrated versions, but that's even more disturbing because if my kid can't get into an R-rated movie, he could still rent the DVD with his friends and watch it without me knowing about it. And that version will be WORSE than the one in the theater! And I also doubt that the unrated version was that much different than the R version anyway.
But what bothers me the most is it seems now that horror movies aren't that creative anymore. They haven't been for years, let's be honest. I rarely go to them just because so many of them suck, "The Descent" excepted (a great movie). And it seems now that instead of trying to be creative and actually encourage great acting and writing (something those movies desperately need), they're just pushing the envelope with the gore and the blood to stand apart from the others. Hostel: Let's show a woman getting her face blowtorched and her eye hanging out! Saw 3: Let's show a woman getting her ribcage blown out after she puts her hand in acid! Even the Descent, again a great movie, played this game: Let's show a woman getting eaten alive!
The gore isn't making these movies better. It's making them worse. Hostel was actually interesting halfway through and could have been so much better
had the director concentrated on the idea of people getting tortured for money rather than just showing the torture over and over. Saw 3 continued in the Saw tradition of having interesting twists and turns that I didn't see coming, but the ending made no sense, and I think one reason why the ending went that way was so the director could pile on yet more gore.
It's time to clean up these horror movies a bit and set some standards regarding how much violence we can see. And if that makes me old for saying that, then so be it.
Dono:
Setting aside my own rant on horror flicks for now, I am more curious about your conclusion. You say, "It's time to clean up these horror movies a bit and set some standards regarding how much violence we can see." What do you mean by that? Who, exactly, is going to set those standards? It seems you are proposing something other than the MPAA ratings that already exist.
The only person who should determine how much violence I should see ‹ beyond the standards that already exist ‹ is me, not some Joe Schmoe in New York or California or Peoria.
Dan:
Funny you should ask.
I just watched "This Film is Not Yet Rated," a movie that exposes the MPAA ratings industry. It's a great movie, and one of the many great points the movie makes is violence tends to just skate by while any sex at all gets
slapped with an R or an NC-17.
The director of "American Psycho" said that when she heard her movie initially got an NC-17 (a death blow to any movie), she figured it was because of some ultra-violent scenes she had it, like a chainsaw falling from the stairs and landing on a guy's face.
Nope.
It was because there was a threesome that was pretty mild (it didn't show much).
The point of the movie was that extreme hardcore violence doesn't seem to bother the ratings system nearly as much as any sex at all.
Now I agree with you that we should determine what movies we can see and what we can't. I am totally against censorship.
But here's what I'd like to see. I would like to see the same standards applied to violence that already apply to sex. I would like the MPAA to maybe force horror filmmakers to make a choice about just how much gore they put in and what they choose to show. I'm not saying get rid of all of it or even most of it, but perhaps they might have to cut or at least reduce the scene of the woman screaming while the guy cuts the burned eyeball off her face for five minutes, as it happened in "Hostel."
I honestly believe it would make the movies better. You can still allude to the fact that the woman got blowtorched on her face. Even show a bit of it.
Isn't that in fact scarier because it leaves the rest to our imagination?
Dono:
I think we agree and disagree. The double standard we place on sex vs. violence is beyond laughable. We are major hypocrites when it comes to that.
The Europeans think we're prudes when it comes to sex, and on this matter, I would agree with our cousins across the pond. You can see violence, some it graphic, on prime times network TV, and no one blinks an eye, but Janet Jackson's nipple — a nipple for chrissakes! — shows up during the Super Bowl and we have a collective cow. That, I thought, was ridiculous.
You say you don't want censorship, which I don't believe you do in principle, but a few graphs later you suggest forcing filmmakers to cut parts out of their work — which is a form of censorship.
My solution to our society's hypocrisy, if it is a solution, is the opposite. Rather than tighten restrictions on violence, I would loosen them on sex to make the balance more equitable.
I understand your point about the potential negative of effects of violence impressionable minds. But short of encouraging better parenting (and we know how effective that is, or isn't), I don't know that there's an acceptable
remedy in a free society. I'm more fearful of the downsides of censorship and restrictions on free speech than I am of the effects of such speech — even if it's abhorrent — on the minds and attitudes of our citizens.
I think I'm getting vertigo from being so high up on my soapbox, so I'm going to step down now.
Dan:
This is a tough one for me.
I totally agree with you on free speech and censorship. In my mind I was not advocating censorship because those standards are already there in some ways. The MPAA makes choices for us all the time about what we should and shouldn't see. Filmmakers are being told what to cut and what not to cut in order to market their films. It just seems to me that maybe those standards for violence by the MPAA should be tightened a bit. I don't know if loosening the sex is the answer, although I"m all for it.
I still honestly think that forcing the filmmakers to cut back on the gore would make them better, but then again it does seem like I'm advocating censorship and that does make me uncomfortable.
Finally, though, filmmakers are given the choice, too, to release DVDs as unrated pics, so we're not really censoring their films, just what's released in theaters. And again I am watching the unrated productions (ironically because I don't like pictures to be censored). Maybe I should just stop doing that and renting the R version.
Maybe this, then, is a call to filmmakers to force themselves to cut back.
Challenge themselves, then, to cut back a bit and make their movies terrifying without showing hours and hours of graphic torture.
The problem is the marketplace is not only supporting these kinds of movies but encouraging them. Horror movies are insanely profitable. I'm willing to bet the Saw movies were more profitable than Spiderman 3 because Spider-man 3 cost so much to make. Horror movies are cheap and yet they consistently make mucho bucks. So my call will fall, as they say, on deaf ears.
Proof? Hostel 2's movie poster just features piles and piles of gristle flesh.
See? This is even tougher than I originally thought. I was sort of venting a bit about a slice (sorry for the pun) of pop culture (that's what this blog is for) and it turns out I don't have a clear solution.
Jared:
I gotta say that I agree with Dono (that never happens!). The sex vs. violence thing is stupid. But violence is also relatively harder to rate. I mean a boob is a boob (I believe Abe Lincoln said that). But when is violence excessive. I mean Saving Private Ryan was brutal and gory, but I would be hard-pressed to say it was too much for an R rating. So, they can easily say an R rating can only have x-number of boob shots and x-number of the F-bomb, but it’s impossible to say you can’t have dismemberment or blood or whatever because it is based on the context.
Now, Dan is correct that horror movies are becoming gorier. But in my opinion the marketplace should dictate this. In our day we had movies like Motel Hell and Day of the Dead with a lot of gore in them. I would hate it if these movies couldn’t have been made the same way because someone felt they deserved an NC-17 or X (remember those?) rating.
I guess I’d say it’s more like what Frank Zappa said during the PMRC hearings back in the 80s. He pointed to a WASP album and he said (roughly), “If you see an album cover with a saw blade in someone’s crotch and it’s titled F-*** Like a Beast, it’s a good guess that this isn’t for Little Johnny.” I think the same is true for the Saw movies and Hostel and many of the others. The people who want to see those movies, want gore. They aren’t looking for great story lines. Sometimes they happen (Saw 1, Motel Hell, The Descent, Halloween 1, Friday the 13th, etc.) but it’s almost not needed for that core audience.
And some movies are breaking out of that mold. 28 Days Later was a zombie movie that had some gore but actually told an amazing story. But it was not nearly as commercially successful as Hostel. Some people just want blood.
Now, comparing these to snuff films. I totally don’t agree. When I see a zombie’s head get chopped off, I can get freaked out and then I laugh because I know it’s not real. Same with the silliness in most gore movies. Like Dan, I also don’t enjoy the ultra gore anymore, but that’s my choice. Faces of Death and even surgical shows on TV make me sick. I can’t stand any sort of real gore.
Dan:
What’s interesting is the two movies I specifically talked about, Saw 3 and Hostel, were in fact designed to look like real torture. They were not zombie movies, which offers what I would call fun gore and not explicit scenes of torture. That’s why I called them snuff films.
You make some really good points, Jared, especially about the marketplace. I think you’re right: That’s what those people want. Does it at all bother you that it appears that that’s what a LOT of people want (given how successful they are and your point about 28 Days Later)? That’s kind of disturbing to me. That’s not what I want. I want gore and blood and even the scenes of torture, just not the extreme we’ve had lately. I want 28 Days Later, a brilliant, terrifying movie with a great storyline and great acting.
And yet I watch Saw 3. Hmmm. Maybe I’m part of the problem more than the solution.
Jared:
Just like the scenes in Motel Hell were supposed to look like people were really being “grown” for their meat. Fake gore and torture is not a snuff film … even if it’s trying to look like it.
And, yes, now that I have kids, of course it concerns me that there are people who want this kind of gore, but then I was absolutely no different when I was younger. Saw 3’s torture scenes were so gory they were just stupid. That offends my intelligence more than my morals. But in my younger days I was less concerned about the intelligence of a movie and preferred just to see some death and destruction.
That’s all it is. The people who are impacted by this stuff who cause violence like the VT thing don’t need movies to make them nuts.
Dan:
I”m not sure how long we want this to continue, but we could name our favorite horror movies here. Or is that another blog? If so save these for next time.
Some off the top of my head:
• Psycho – Still a masterpiece
• Halloween
• Nightmare on Elm Street part 3 – Believe it or not, I actually like this more than the original, but if we’re championing ideas, Freddy has to be one of the most creative villians ever to come out of the horror genre.
• 28 Days Later – I liked the alternate endings too.
• Blair Witch Project – I maintain that this was an original take on the horror genre and one of the scariest movies I’ve seen. Then again I’m a hiker and just the fact that they were lost for that long scared me as much as the spooky twigs.
• Friday the 13th – It’s actually not that great but the payoff/ending is nice.
• Poltergiest – By far the scariest PG movie ever made. I don’t think there’s even a close second.
• Shaun of the Dead – This is probably just a comedy but it’s one of the best ever made.
• Gremlins – Does this qualify? It’s great regardless.
Jared:
The Exorcist … not as creepy over time, but still good.
The Entity is still the scariest movie I’ve ever seen.
The original Dracula with Bela Legosi. The movie scared the piss out of me as a kid.
Wizard of Oz … I know it’s not a horror movie, but that damn witch and her freakin’ monkeys still give me nightmares.
Psycho … classic (and the novel for Psycho II is even better! Too bad they didn’t make that into a movie!)
Return of the Living Dead … (I’ll give this a slightly higher rating than Shaun for humor because it’s just awesome!)
Poltergeist … Those chairs give me the willies every time!
The Exorcist … not as creepy over time, but still good.
Halloween
Dono:
I’ll add my quick two cents. I agree with Dan that Freddy Kruger is one of more original ideas to come out of the horror genre. Is he real, or is he not? The first one is at the top of my list.
I’m prone to like the goofier ones, like “Shaun of the Dead” and “Tremors.” But if they qualify, and I think they do, Alien and Alien II were simply awesome “horror” movies. Suspense. Big bad-ass monster. Great action. Great lines. And a kick-ass female hero.
Dan:
Ooo, yeah, the two Alien pictures are great choices, Donovan. I don’t even think Aliens qualifies but who cares, it’s a great, scary flick.
Jared:
Tremors! I love that one. So, damn funny! How Kevin Bacon didn’t win an Oscar I’ll never know.
I think both Aliens qualify. And I agree with both. | Only registered users can write comments.
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3 Wise-asses (15)
writen by: 3wiseasses
We're not that bright, even though in our own little world, we're geniuses. We like 80s hair bands and one-hit wonders, but among us we have respectable tastes, too. Metallica, Iron Maiden, U2. Pursuit of all things trivial is a lifestyle, not just a game. We like some sports, love other sports, and can find something to say about anything. We watch TV and movies and we've read a book or two, even a few classics (Yes, Classic Comics count!)
We call it insight, you call it what you will. |
|  | "Humankind cannot gain anything without first giving something in return. To obtain, something of equal value must be lost. That is Alchemy's first law of Equivalent Exchange. In those days, we really believed that to be the world's one, and only truth." | |
| | We're not that bright, even though in our own little world, we're geniuses. We like 80s hair bands and one-hit wonders, but among us we have respectable tastes, too. Metallica, Iron Maiden, U2. Pursuit of all things trivial is a lifestyle, not just a game. We like some sports, love other sports, and can find something to say about anything. We watch TV and movies and we've read a book or two, even a few classics (Yes, Classic Comics count!)
We call it insight, you call it what you will. | |
|  | Felix Wong is an outdoor enthusiast living in Fort Collins. A mechanical engineer by day, he is especially passionate about bicycling, running, and backpacking. | |
|  | Hola Amigos! I'm Sandra. I like to believe that people are 70 percent good and 30 percent dumb. I'm stickin to that story. Reading this blog might make you want to be good, but probably just dumb. | |
|  | Donovan Henderson is editor of NEXTnc. |
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