at the "I know," I got a tiny inkling that he might shoot himself, so it wasn't a bait-and-switch for me so much as a moment of suspense before we found out which one he had shot.

That's pretty much my experience. I wasn't sure if he was gonna kill himself because he recoginized he's weak, or kill Brandt as compensation for being weak, so it was suspenseful for me.

Mind you, head-in-a-box would have been somewhat anticlimactic, gore-wise, in Se7en. I still have spontaneous shudders based on bits from that film.

Mind you, head-in-a-box would have been somewhat anticlimactic, gore-wise, in Se7en. I still have spontaneous shudders based on bits from that film.

The amazing thing about Se7en is that the only on-screen violence is comitted by Brad Pitt - everything else is after the fact. It's the imagining of how the victims got that way that brings the creepieness.

The all-time king of essentially non-violent, shudder-inducing movies is the original Dutch VANISHING. I've seldom been so creeped out as I was by the final shot of that film (it was a literal flesh-crawling moment for me).

everything else is after the fact. It's the imagining of how the victims got that way that brings the creepieness.

Beg to differ. That movie blew its creepiness budget in the first 20 minutes, and started borrowing from the Grand Guignol budget.

Matt's ponit remains true, i.e. being primed to imagine awfulness is more emotionally arresting than if you'd seen the explicit awfulness. I think it goes double whenever severed heads are involved, because of how fake severed heads tend to look.

major understatement. I took a glance over there and the vitriol is spewing rather heavily. Even the people who don't hate it aren't showing a lot of enthusiasm for it. I don't get it.

I think it's more like THEY don't get it. I think they are just seeing surface stuff and not actually thinking much about what they saw. Maybe they are so used to shows doing the work for them, that they resent making the effort themselves?

TWOP tends to go in waves, everyone trashes something for a while, then someone pipes up and gives praise, which brings out more people who say positive things about it.

Yes. When sloth coughed, I jumped out of my seat so fast I left my skin behind.

I'm still broken about numbers and can't even start discussing the episode.

Let the record show I went to bed last night kind of messed up by the man-rape. It was one of those things where, you know, what they don't show you is scarier than what they do?

[Shudder.]

Yes. When sloth coughed, I jumped out of my seat so fast I left my skin behind.

You and me both. I have never been so glad to have a mostly undrunk-as-yet soda in my chair's armrest/cupholder.

herd group-think...TWOP is the herdiest.

I'm still broken about numbers

I'm going to Office Depot to try and cheer myself up. You want some colorful gel pens?