Have horror films these days gone too far?!
Question: I'm a fan of classic horror, but it seems these days writers are competing to make storylines more and more disturbing. The Saw films for example, or the Hostel films.. do you ever wonder if these films could perhaps give a certain type of person...ideas? Anyone can think up, hitting someone over the head, but now we're talking.. really, really twisted torturing vs. guilt.. leading to death. It makes you wonder what the writers were on when they thought up these plots. It just worries me the idea, that one day, someone might get ideas from such films, and try and copy some of the events...what do you think?
Answers: I'm a fan of classic horror, but it seems these days writers are competing to make storylines more and more disturbing. The Saw films for example, or the Hostel films.. do you ever wonder if these films could perhaps give a certain type of person...ideas? Anyone can think up, hitting someone over the head, but now we're talking.. really, really twisted torturing vs. guilt.. leading to death. It makes you wonder what the writers were on when they thought up these plots. It just worries me the idea, that one day, someone might get ideas from such films, and try and copy some of the events...what do you think?
Yes and No. I hear what you say...but I think things are much worse.
Much of what passes for horror ...is not horror. They are pseudo snuff films...masquerading as splatter films... masquerading as horror films. They call them horror...but they are not.
I agree with you that people are going to get ideas. I think some already have. And the only people who know that they have...are the people who they will victimise. I don't doubt it...at all.
What really concerns and frightens me...is that one day people are going to fall in love and rave about the latest splatter film only to find out that someone was actually killed in this film. Then watch the stampede. Not of the serial killers in training...but of the audience for them. It is not influence on the sick person awaiting cinematic stimulus to commit a heinous crime that bothers me. It is the so-called average everyday Joe (and Jill) for whom this type of masturbatory porn has become bread and butter...and how they celebrate the taking of life...far beyond any excess of excitement one need have for any movie....that concerns me...frightens me.
Check out a film called Hard Candy...the very antithesis of slasher porn movies...then go to IMDB.com and read the comments of those who saw the movie. Keep a barf bag handy. Your stomach may not quite believe what you are reading...and may object strongly. You will understand...in a way that works for you...just how much trouble we are in as a society. Deep, deep...doodoo.
i dont like any thing horrific at all. The munsters is my limit...
i LOVE up to date horror & gore flicks, especially really gross bloody bits...not going too far tho....look out on the streets, i mean, how much furthur it goes on out there!!!
I don't think its that they gone too far - I think the definition of horror has changed.
Horror used to be psychologically terrifying, but these days, horror is defined more as gruesome gore.
These horror films that you speak of can't possibly be as disturbing as watching the England cricket team
i like them this way. and by the way people have imitated movies from the beginning of movies. besides movies did not make them do anything.......it was their choice............
its just shock value. Its still entertaining
Gone too far?
As compared to what?
i think that movies have gotten worse because the public had been desensitized to violence. it's on the news, it's on t.v., it's in the comics that kids read. this causes movie makers to go bigger and badder, this causes the audience to become more desensitized... it's a vicious cycle. personally, i favor the classics myself as well. however, there are a few newer horror flicks that have really caught my eye. Zombie Honeymoon is fantastic! Fido is also fantastic! I'm a huge zombie geek and both of these are more humorous than horrific, but still great. also check out Behind the Mask (the rise of Leslie Vernon). great, great, great movie paying homage to the classics!
Might? I think it's happened a couple of times, but they were weak-minded individuals.
As far as today's horror films, they are just not that frightening anymore because they leave nothing to the imagination.
you have to change with the times. These days it's harder to shock people on the big screen due to the internet, the reality tv shows etc. I remember when The Exorcist was considered to the most shocking horror film of all time. Nowadays compared to others, it's a comedy. Also since DVD extras came along most everyone knows how all the special effects are done. Think about it..what was the last movie that literally made you jump out of your seat? I bet you cant name one that actually scared you. So now they go for shock value instead of scare.
To me, movies like that are a sign that the writers have no talent. There are SO many "horror" films out there right now that completely depend on torturing people in as many ways as possible, and making as much gore as possible. It's a cop-out, if you ask me. A fourteen year old could write that garbage.
I'm a horror fan, but I'm a fan of GOOD horror. I love movies like "The Others", "Sixth Sense", "Rosemary's Baby", "The Exorcist", etc. Unfortunately, it seems as if today's writers just can't seem to come up with an actual story. I don't care about being shocked or grossed out. I want to be "horrified". I want to be scared. I want to be left thinking about the movie.
"Horror" is a very elastic term. It means a lot of different things to a lot of different people. "Splatter" films are really just excersizes in gore,not real suspense in it's more"classic"meaning. But times chamge I remember my parents worrying because I like the the Hammer Films with Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing among others and i remember the uproar"Night of The Living Dead"caused when it first opened. But,it's all subjective really and after all these years,I still haven't felt the need to take out anyone with a hatchet. In fact,there's a whole genre of horror based on what you "don't" see that creates the feeling of terror and they'll last forever
i think the saw movies are amazing! I think the problem is that people is we are getting to hard to scare and so people have to do things that we have phobias of i.e. clowns, eyes poked out, suffocation. They are trying to switch it up so it isnt the same old same old. I think they are doing a good job
I agree strongly.
The modern day horrors are grotesque, the makers seem to be driven towards shock tactics, they think they need to be gorier, bloodier etc
what happened to the old suspense horror? They lost there imagination?
Yes, instead of building suspense like the old Hitchcock or Tourneur films, they concentrate on gore which does nothing but gross people out.
Horror movies haven't gone too far, they just SUCK nowadays.
Gory does not equal scary.
The Saw series, Hostel 1 and 2 and the rest of those awful pieces of crap are made for people with the mentality of a retard.
There is nothing scary about these films. They're just pointless gory bores.
I agree, I love old horror films.
I find that modern horror films either have so many special effects they are cartoony, or they are just gross, neither of which I find scary or appealing.
Horror should be blood chillingly frightening not morally disturbing.
No.They show more gore,because thats what sells.These producers and directors are trying to make money. People can get ideas without movies. People can get ideas from anywhere,so why bother trying to stop horror movies.
no, it hasn't. and no one has ever gotten an idea to kill someone from watching horror films. just like no one has ever gotten the idea from watching the news, or documentaries, or crime shows, etc.
the fact is, if hostel and saw are all u have experienced in horror, even being a fan of "classic horror", u haven't seen much. saw and hostel are what are called visceral or splatterpunk horror, which is a subgenre all it's own. and it's a very old subgenre. it's simply back in vogue in theatres. it will pass.
well.. if they do something just from watching a movie, then they were f'd up to begin with, and either the movie is there or not, they'll find some other way to kill
Yes i do think they have gone too far...........But then i guess that's what makes a good horror and we still watch em don't we lol.
If you hate those movies because they are disturbing, then you're missing the point. Personally I lump everyone who hates "violent" or "controversial" cinema based purely on content (without understanding of context or intention). I believe in nonviolence but I love violent movies. Go figure. The thing is, you saw those movies and reacted exactly the way you were supposed to--you were disgusted by it. You felt something, it caused a reaction. How many movies have you seen that you will forget within five minutes of watching them? It's one thing to not like a movie, but to write it off as sick and something that only sickos with no talent would make as a movie clearly misses the entire point. Those movies are an implicit critique of other movies--movies where violence is shown with little or no consequence.