Christ, we as a people are entirely to fickle and particular these days when it comes to movies. Some horror fans...not all... love to hate horror and or films of a gorish nature.
Take Doomsday for example. Directed by Descent's Neil Marshall, it has recently been raped by professional critics and internet wanna be's alike. The movie (notice I didn't say film...that would be giving it a moniker it knowingly does not want) is an homage to Mad Max, Escape from New York and just about every 80's post apocalyptic movie ever made. Is this a good film....no. Is it a fun movie...hell yes.
Full of excessive gore, guns, explosions, stripper poles, cannibalism, knights, gladiators, fat kilted can can dancers, Malcolm Mcdowell chewing scenery and a hot hero chick, I ask any fan of horror amd exploitive genre movies who didn't like this movie simply...why. It has everything. Sure the script has it's share of plot holes, sure the acting isn't the best but have we become so utterly picky that we suddenly forgot to have fun while watching a movie? True horror and exploitive movie fans should only want to have a good time watching horror and exploitive type movie.
I'm a horror hypocrite myself! I absolutely hated Diary of the Dead. It pains me to say because I am, without a doubt, a huge zombie and Romero fan but I couldn't stand it! Not because it was a bad zombie movie but that it had a political youtube generation agenda shoved down my throat. I know full well that Romero's zombie films all have a message or agenda but this one just seemed forced and an agenda Romero was fishing to find. Rather than to have fun and make a cool zombie flick it felt like a lesson. Oh and by the way critics loved it. The same ones who hated his other dead films...loved this one because of "the message".
I could care less about a message when it comes to my horror. Does Friday the 13th have message. Yes! Don't allow retarded kids to drown in a lake or their culinary camp mom will cut you to pieces.
Elm Street's message... don't kill pedophiles by burning them or they haunt your dreams and kill you with finger knives.
Halloween...don't f&^k with the boogeyman!
My point is, none of these horror films had socially acceptable messages or even made a whole lot of sense, ( Ex. Wheelchair Dungeon Master vs Freddy in Dream Warriors) but they were undeniably fun. So going into Doomsday I vowed to just pay my 7 bucks and have fun..because it simply is more fun to do so then sit in any horror movie with a WTF is going on feeling. I didn't enjoy Diary but half of it was because I had my horror snob hat on. Now I'm not saying this positive outlook will work on every horror film I see from now on, but I know if a horror movie doesn't take itself too seriously I will most likely enjoy it more than one that does.
All in all Doomsday IMHO was a rip roaring fun time and that was it. No more. No less.
So next time you go see a horror or exploitive genre movie...please remember to simply have a good time.
Love ya all
-m
I don't think horror fans "love to hate" gore horror... they just don't care for it, and avoid it. Many fans of modern horror don't enjoy vintage horror either. Personally, I like most all if it, but I haven't seen Doomsday.
So you think it's hypocritical for a horror fan to dislike gore?
Quote
Full of excessive gore, guns, explosions, stripper poles, cannibalism, knights, gladiators, fat kilted can can dancers, Malcolm Mcdowell chewing scenery and a hot hero chick,
I'M THERE! Seriously I think I'll go tonight -
Quoteis an homage to Mad Max,
"What-a-puny-plan!"
pk
It doesn't make one a hypocrite to not like not good movies?
Best,
-Craig W.
Just because you don't like a movie does not make you a hypocrite. I absolutely love horror movies, always have and always will. From the 20's on up til now. I just happen to think most newer horror movies really suck. I hated Doomsday, Diary of the Dead, Land of the Dead, The Descent, the Hills Have Eyes remake, Hostel, Grindhouse and tons of other newer horror movies. But every once in awhile something comes along that I like such as Slither, 30 Days of Night, or Feast. Not liking newer horror movies does not make me a hypocrite any more than not liking older "classic" horror movies. There are plenty of older horror movies that I don't care for. Witchfinder General is a good example, most people love that film and it gets constant praise and is considered a classic. I find it really boring and just a total disappointment. It all comes down to opinion.
I wanted to like Doomsday. It just took forever to get going. It's nowhere near as good as any of the movies that it's copying. The whole punks in the city but medieval out in the country was pretty stupid. The music was terrible. The chase scene was really dumb (I won't go into details here for those who haven't seen it yet). Ah I could go on but it just comes down to I didn't enjoy it. I have friends who did and that's fine.
However, and this has nothing to do with horror although it is pretty horrifying in ways, I totally loved the new Rambo. Talk about gore and explosions galore!!
Quote from: ZOMBOPHOTO on March 30, 2008, 03:20:00 PMI absolutely love horror movies, always have and always will. From the 20's on up til now.
My God, Zombo.......how old ARE you?
HA, ha :D
I'm very well preserved...
There is a great essay at VIDEO WATCHBLOG on the difference between monster movies and horror movies. I cut a lot more slack for monster movies than I do current horror movies.
Messages in a film can be subtle and forceful or blunt. Skill can make a message RESONATE. After all, fables all have a message. So do great films like TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD or THE INTRUDER. Work as both art and as "just a movie."
Quote from: The Drunken Severed Head on April 05, 2008, 06:15:25 PM
There is a great essay at VIDEO WATCHBLOG on the difference between monster movies and horror movies.
Got a link? I looked for it, but no luck. The essay, not the blog...
It's contained within a post on Rick Baker's makeup for the upcoming remake of THE WOLF MAN. Scroll down a little at this page below:
http://videowatchdog.blogspot.com/2008_03_16_archive.html (http://videowatchdog.blogspot.com/2008_03_16_archive.html)
Speaking of gore, it depends on the situation it's used in. Is the gore contextual or superfluous. In The Ruins, the two most intense gore-related scenes concern the amputation and the self-mutilation. I found both effective to the point of nausea, but essential to sell the horror of the storyline at those points: so it was contextual.
Superfluous gore is buckets of blood and meaty chunks sent flying ad nauseum, with little logic applied. I don't like that kind of gore, as it is done solely for the effect of splatter, and not to intensify the scene it's used around.
An interesting anomaly would be the SAW movies. They rely heavily on upping the upchuck-quotient every Halloween season. Although the gore is contextually used, the films themselves have become vehicles for the gore, not the other way around, where gore should enable the storyline. Hostel is falling into that category, too.
John
Quote from: Iloz Zoc on April 10, 2008, 08:32:07 PM
Superfluous gore is buckets of blood and meaty chunks sent flying ad nauseum, with little logic applied. I don't like that kind of gore, as it is done solely for the effect of splatter, and not to intensify the scene it's used around.
An interesting anomaly would be the SAW movies. They rely heavily on upping the upchuck-quotient every Halloween season. Although the gore is contextually used, the films themselves have become vehicles for the gore, not the other way around, where gore should enable the storyline. Hostel is falling into that category, too.
John
I feel the same way about sex (and gore). If it is so intense as to be disturbing, but carries the story, then so be it. Gore for gore's sake, as with sex for sex' sake, does not a good movie make no matter what he genre (except maybe porn...).
Most horror films, whether classic or modern... have gratuitous something or other. I agree that most extremely gory movies are usually not good movies, but the reason for that has more to do with funding than anything. The audience for extreme gore is generally rather small... but in the case of Hostel or Saw, you see a wider appeal because they are better movies than the standard. I'm not going to say that either of them are great films, but clearly the point of them was to be a vehicle for extreme gore. I love some of the J-horror stuff like Ichi the Killer or Auditon. There are gobs of gonzo zombie films with great gushing gore. Or all of the Giallo films, injecting gore into typical police story type stuff... They're not Oscar calibre films by any stretch, but great fun horror movies to be sure. And gratuituos? You bet.
I went to see this today and thought it was a fun movie. Yes, it did require quite a bit of suspension of disbelief, but so did Road Warrior, and it was very much an updated Road Warrior type movie. I think a lot of the mohawk punks vs the King Arthur/Vlad medieval group, and the isolation of Scotland had a lot of allegorical, social, political, and historical meaning to those in the UK that serves to add confusion to North Americans more than anything. If I were British or Scottish or Irish I'd probably relate to a lot of those things which are pretty well lost on me... although I understand enough about the UK that I recognized a lot of "inside jokes", even if I didn't quite get them.
I probably won't buy this movie or feel the need to watch it again, but I'm glad I saw it and didn't feel it was a waste of time or money by any means.