I miss a time period I was never even a part of.
It’s not often I find a movie worth talking about. I can’t seem to subject myself to the majority of films produced in the last few years. Most of the cinema brought to theaters nowadays are simple cash cows designed with simple consumerism in mind. Movies today lack story. Movies today lack captivation. Movies today lack humanity. These statements mostly can be targeted towards the “scary movie” genre that has become increasingly popular as of late. Old-fashioned horror films have become few and far between.
A new genre, classily titled, “torture porn,” has been sweeping the nation.
Suddenly, I can’t stomach watching many “blockbusters.” Call me crazy, but I have no inclinations to watch other people, even fictional people, be maimed, tortured, or subjected to violence at the hand of another. Big dollar horror franchises such as “Saw” have ruined the film experience for weak stomached people like myself. Speaking to the “Saw” franchise particularly, I am very disappointed in the portrayal of what could have been an amazing story; ruined by over use of fake blood, complicated traps, and sexual objectification woven into extreme violence and sadism.
I would love to start a petition with Lionsgate, urging for editing of particularly violent imagery from the “Saw” films, replaced with camera trickery and smoke and mirrors. At one point in time, it didn’t take a busty actress covered in blood to inspire an audience to feel butterflies of fear. It would be nice to have an opportunity to plan a “scary movie date night” without fear of the probability of subjecting myself to a night of sexualized violence.
Maybe if I lived during the days of Hitchcock I might have enjoyed the horror genre of cinematography. Hitchcock had the right idea. He knew how to captivate an audience. He knew how to draw a person into the story, and he knew how to give his viewers the shivers, without the added nausea of dehumanizing the actors in his films. I don’t like to sound like a dinosaur at the ripe age of twenty-one, but, in my opinion, this new era of blood, guts, sex, and gore has nothing to do with a good scary story. This new era is sick and unnecessary.
I guess there is some hope. M. Night Shyamalan renewed my faith in horror cinematography the first time I saw “Signs,” one of the most terrifying films I have ever experienced. His work with “The Sixth Sense” and even with the controversial, “The Village,” showed me a different side of the horror industry that I am growing ever more fond of. I look forward to experiencing more of his work, and continuing to boycott the foulness of “horror porn” that continues to haunt our generation.
While I cannot agree with your opinion, and can comment on the age of slasher films and torture porn, I most certainly like how well spoken your article comes across.
ReplyDeleteThe most ambiguous element of your writing is the first sentence. When you wrote "I miss" it could have just as easily been "I missed" and while this is grammatically and syntactically correct, someone less read would take it as an error.
The phrase "scary movie date night" does not need quotations. It does give an added effect to your writing, but is wholly unnecessary. I quoted it because I did so to point it out.
Where you wrote, "Maybe if I lived in the days of Hitchcock", you don't need the word "maybe". It doesn't do anything that the later part of the sentence, "I might", does for you already.
On an off-note, torture porn has existed well into the 70s and even as far back as the 60s with gory B films and excuses to make mainstream porn by placing nudity in gore, to pass censors, something still practiced today, as I can tell you are well aware of.
Also, I do disagree with Shyamalan, but that is more of a personal opinion than anything.
Your blog was insightful and well written, and I hope my small critiques helped.