I think (as is usually the case) most of the people who are shouting about how wrong and evil Eli Roth's films are have never seen them.
Laga, this is what he said as well. Heh. I'm definitely interested. I liked
Saw
and
Saw II.
I found them interesting and creative. I'm trying to evaluate my response to
Final Destination 3,
because I liked the first two movies, but for some reason, I didn't care so much for the third. I didn't think I was squeamish about graphic death, but it made me weirdly uncomfortable.
I used to not be squeamish or uncomfortable about graphic death/torture scenes in movies, and the last couple years I've found that I can hardly stand them. I don't know why I've become more sensitized rather than further jaded. This is why I avoided all the aforementioned Eli Roth movies. I thought they were just torture porn.
The little bit I saw of Hostel was pretty appalling.
After being exposed to Dario Argento (specifically SUSPIRIA) as an early teen, I'm very blase about almost all Horrible Bloody Death in movies. Bad stuff in real life (pain without any blood even) makes me incredibly squeamish, but if it's fake I'm OK with it (which means I avoid certain Italian and Asian movies that induldge in real animal death; I can take it in APOCALYPSE NOW because it was a ceremony that was going to happen anyway, but if it was staged soley for the sake of the movie, nuh huh not remotely interested in pushing my "limits").
It takes something besides just gory violence to disturb me; some other level of disturbing. I think I can count the films that bothered me since seeing SUSPIRIA on one hand, and it was always something in addition to the violence. That said, I want something from horror movies that's OTHER than gory violence (or nothing but sex and gory violence), and some of my favorite horror movies have close to none if any (I'm thinking of (the real) THE HAUNTING here).
Yeah I was thinking I would have had a lot harder time watching something like The Sixth Sense alone in a darkened auditorium. The scariness of Hostel 2 was mostly of the sudden jump type. The actual torture and death scenes are more of the sickened grimace variety. I recall seeing some pretty disturbing visuals in the last couple seasons of Buffy too.
I recall seeing some pretty disturbing visuals in the last couple seasons of Buffy too.
Nathan Fillion taking out Xander's eye springs to mind.
and Warren with no skin on. And the gnarl.
A guy I worked with overseas, whose job involves picking through the remnants of suicide bombers in Iraq, saw
Hostel
and told me it was the most disturbing thing he had ever seen. He didn't seem happy about that.
What movie were Nicole Kidman and Julianne Moore both in? I am drawing a blank.
