The things I do to myself

[andrewducker]

I have a bad habit.

I don't generally watch truly unpleasant movies. I have no interest in seeing Hostel, or the various Texas Chainsaw movies, or the Saw sequels (although I hear the first movie is worth seeing), or generally anything where the main focus of the movie is horrible things happening to people, with no redeeming other qualities. Not that I object to gore, violence, etc. in my movies - Bad Taste is one of my favourite movies ever, and I have a massive soft spot for the first two Hellraiser movies, I'm just not a fan of torture for its own sake.

Anyway - my confession is this. I have no interest in seeing these movies, but I do find myself irresistably drawn to reading their synopses on Wikipedia. It's like a car crash, I find myself reading the plots to The Human Centipede and A Serbian Film, and then wishing that I hadn't*.

I don't really understand why, either. I don't get anything out of it, except that it quells my curiosity and makes me feel vaguely nauseous.

If I work out how to stop it, I'll let you know...

*And, if you haven't already read the synopses to these movies, then I also suggest that you don't.

Comments

[dalglir.livejournal.com]

Bad Taste, Lord of the Rings, Star Wars. None of these are available via iTunes. Well disappointed.

[andrewducker]

I'm a bit surprised that iTunes doesn't have a deal with LucasFilm or Warners. I wonder why.

(Especially as the Clone Wars TV series is apparently on iTunes.)

[star-tourmaline.livejournal.com]

I don't do this, but I do things that are very similar in nature.

[marrog.livejournal.com]

Is A Serbian Film as bad as the Human Centipede?

[andrewducker]

Yes. Insofar as they are very different in nature, but equally likely to leave you feeling like you'd like to bleach your brain.

[marrog.livejournal.com]

Weirdly, that didn't really bother me - I wouldn't want to see it but reading the Wikipedia synopsis was unmoving. Human Centipede by contrast I try my damnedest not even to remember if I possibly can.

[andrewducker]

I'm amused, and not unsurprised, that you went and read it. Glad it didn't get to you. I think I imagine things in enough detail to upset me, and that kind of thing tends to get to me.

I'm reminded of the time that I was having dinner with some people, and I mentioned Goatse. None of them had seen it, and I assured them they didn't want to. Which didn't stop one of them from demanding a laptop so they could google it. And then assuring the remaining two that they didn't want to see it. So of course they _had_ to as well.

People are pretty funny sometimes.

(And I wonder how many people here went and looked up those movies. And are now googling Goatse).

[erindubitably.livejournal.com]

I looked up A Serbian Film and read the synopsis as well - had much the same reaction as Mo, oddly.

[marrog.livejournal.com]

I now very much wish you hadn't reminded me of Goatse. I don't even like that teeshirt of yours.

[ashfae.livejournal.com]

Funny you should mention goatse just now...

(link is completely safe, fyi)

[andrewducker]

Good Lord. They actually used the right name too! I wonder if they got in contact with him...

[ashfae.livejournal.com]

Seems unlikely, but heh, it's a hilarious comic moment. Possibly the only time I've ever been amused by anything goatse-related, so memorable for that accolade alone!

[henriksdal.livejournal.com]

yeah, me too - they are very very different sorts of utter ickiness. I suspect that Human Centipede is disgusting at a very base, instinctive level. You are disgusted by shit at a very early age, so I guess is imprinted more, than sexual ickiness found in Serbian Film, which you wouldn't understand until you were somewhat older.

[nmg.livejournal.com]

The Human Centipede

You bastard! I'd just forgotten that it existed!

[andrewducker]

I get the feeling that this is a modern equivalent of The Game.

[nmg.livejournal.com]

You bastard!

But at least I don't feel nauseous when I lose The Game.

[marrog.livejournal.com]

Yes, exactly.

[chipuni.livejournal.com]

You and I are in the same boat.

Ugh. Ugh. Ugh.

I've read the description, and... that's enough. I can never un-read that description.

[nmg.livejournal.com]

Ditto. I'm grateful that I've never seen the film.

[henriksdal.livejournal.com]

oh! I do the exact same thing! I have no idea why. And argh I had nearly forgotten about the human centipede.

[sterlingspider.livejournal.com]

Saw may well be the only movie I have actually gotten angry at for having wasted nearly two hours of my life. If you ever think you maybe feel like watching Saw, slap yourself, take a moment to regroup, and then go watch Se7en so you can experience what Saw should have been.

[marrog.livejournal.com]

I actually thought Saw was pretty good. Haven't been tempted to watch any of its sequals but I quite enjoyed it for what it was - well put together, decent level of tension, good performances throughout, good effects, good soundtrack. Se7en it's not, but I consider it worthwhile.

[sterlingspider.livejournal.com]

IIRC it was mostly a question of empathy for me.

In that by the end when I knew I was supposed to have some for the protagonists I absolutely didn't, and that made me very angry. Also the "reveal" was... ugh, just thinking about that makes me angry again.

I am normally a horror movie director's wet dream, I have a hair trigger adrenal system and I watch movies very immersively. I've been known to jump at scary scenes in books. For me to be so distracted by how BADLY I'm being emotionally manipulated that I can't even get into it is really saying something.

Oddly the second Saw movie wasn't that bad, or at least it didn't make me actively angry. I have not seen the rest of them.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

The main difference between the Texas Chainsaw Massacre and movies like Hostel or Saw[1] or Hard Candy[2] is that while TCM was nearly unique for it's time in that it treated the characters like meat instead of people, the horror was supposed to COME from the fact that these characters were being treated as meat and you don't do that to people.

Whereas the entire torture-porn[3] genre is all about how these people are being treated like meat *because they did something wrong*. Even if that wrong demonstrably doesn't justify their treatment, they still did SOMETHING to make them nonconformist, non-approved, non-standard - and the audience is invited to revel, at least in part, in them getting their just rewards.

[1]: No, the original is not worth seeing.

[2]: Remove gore from Saw, get Hard Candy[4]. Despite decent actors, it was an unpleasant film - like seeing an otherwise-decent action film with an extended torture scene where the bad guy gets raped just enough that he gives up all the good intelligence so the ticking time bomb can be defused and they'd never have saved the world without using torture.

[3]: What, how is this not the perfect description of those? It's like porn: Bad acting and ludicrous setups as a frame to hang fucking-for-the-camera on. Except instead of fucking, it's torture.

[4]: It's also a very interesting take on the story if you assume it's a GHOST story - after all, not one single character ever interacts with the female protagonist except the male protagonist, in any way. However, the reinterpretation of the movie as a ghost story is not nearly interesting enough to watch the rest of the film, which swaps between character drama and torture porn pretty regularly.

[andrewducker]

Hard Candy was another one where I was tempted by the movie, but put off because it sounded somewhat gratuitous. Not that I'm always against unpleasantness. I saw Audition at the cinema and thought it was great - but the majority of that movie isn't torture, although it's mostly famous for the bit that is.

I know what you mean about the "they did something wrong" bit of these movies. They seem to want the audience to cheer because the victims deserve it. It's an attitude I find somewhat baffling. I remember people writing about Blair Witch that one of the characters deserved to die because they were so whiny (or threw away the map, or something similar) - and being a bit shocked. Sure, someone might be a bit of a dick, but to enjoy watching them die because of it felt like pure revenge, and put me of that person somewhat.

[sterlingspider.livejournal.com]

as for [3]: I call that genre Snuff-Core.

There are no skinamax-style carefully placed objects in the way of the penetration like you have in some porn. I suppose that would be more like The Ring or the aforementioned Se7en, where everything that is horrible happens just off frame and what you see is the build up and the aftermath.

No, this is all about that one shot in het. style hardcore porn taken from just under the guy's ass while they are in doggy style. It's all red, veiny, angry balls, razor burn, and slapping meat sounds.

Note: Hard Candy is actually based on a Japanese film which IIRC is by the same guy that did Audition.

[pisica.livejournal.com]

I had to go and read the plot of, damn, it was the one with Hannibal Lecter but not all the same actors as Silence of the Lambs; anyway, the really twisted guy who completely destroyed himself physically because HL tortured him. Same sort of thing. But I am resisting all the other suggestions you've made here. :/

[ashfae.livejournal.com]

I feel better; I sometimes do this too. Devil, the Saw movies, all sorts of junk that I never ever ever want to watch but feel a need to know the ending of, which I inevitably regret. I think the urge can be summed up as Humans Have Silly Brains.

[andrewducker]

Sometimes I just have to know whether the people make it out at the end (which had me reading the synopses of The Descent and Rec).

[cairmen.livejournal.com]

I wouldn't class The Descent in the same genre as the rest of the films we're discussing. It's not, as I recall, particularly gory or gratuitous - just really, really well-done ensemble horror.

[undeadbydawn.livejournal.com]

with cairmen here.
Descent and REC are not in the same category at all. Neither are torture films, neither are especially gratuitous. It's entirely possible you'd enjoy both, as they aren't terribly 'unpleasant' either, just horrific in the traditional sense. I recently bought [.REC]2 and found it equally enjoyable despite bad peer reviews

While I do generally enjoy the torture-porn genre, I *hated* Hostel because the protagonists were unlikeable assholes. Hostel 2 was vastly superior, not least in having characters that were smart, likeable and [redacted]

The SAW series starts off quite decent, gets seriously soupy in the middle - I recall parts 3-4 being horribly confusing - and picks up a bit towards the end. Still haven't seen 3D. I chose to ignore the fact that to actually do the stuff in the films, Mr SAW would have to be rediculously rich and inconceivably far-sighted.

[blackmanxy.livejournal.com]

I do this all the time too, but I don't consider it a bad habit. But then, I'm kind of weird. I love horror, but don't like dealing with the ickiness. So I read the synopses and see if there's a good idea there or if it's just a vehicle for ickiness. Sadly, I find there usually isn't.

[spacelem.livejournal.com]

You seem to have a very similar approach to me with your horror. I love stupid gory nonsense like Braindead, Evil Dead 2 and 3, and other such silly films where the heads go flying (note: you might like to try watching Versus). All the torture porn stuff really puts me off though, as I can't bear watching suffering, and they seem to go as far out to make it as realistic as possible. There's a few I can stretch to (mostly when the horror is psychological, or downright unbelievable), but I find it really difficult to watch that stuff these days, and yet I do find some sort of fascination in reading the plots to those films.

A Serbian Film just sounds like some people brainstormed everything awful they could possibly imagine, and then filmed it. I think I might miss that one.

[jack-ryder.livejournal.com]

I'm a big horror fan, but I can't watch what passes for horror films nowadays. I divide them into two genres:

- the shoot your neighbour in the face film (zombie films)
- the I'll-teach-you-for-spurning-me-at-high-school film (torture porn films)

That being said, Rec and The Descent I like (I like The Descent very much actually, but I don't think it fits in either genre.)

[andrewducker]

Yeah, both of those are actually under "too damn scary for me". I can manage slow zombie movies, which are all about ratcheting tension, but when fast zombies are leaping out of the darkness I'm to be found under my seat, quivering.

[cairmen.livejournal.com]

Aha.

I just about manage films like that, but... well.

I saw The Descent at the cinema. It worked.

About half-way through the film someone two rows up decided they needed to go to the toilet. All I knew of this was that suddenly there was unexpected movement, IN THE CINEMA, in my peripheral vision.

I only just stopped myself from punching the guy by sheer terrified instinct.

[andrewducker]

I had to persuade myself not to leave the cinema a couple of times during 28 Days Later...

[tempestteapot.livejournal.com]

I'm the same way only my reading of choice has been themoviespoiler.com. I take solace in the fact that at least I didn't spend money or more than a few minutes with them.

[andrewducker]

I shall bookmark that site for later use. Thanks!

[khbrown.livejournal.com]

I’m wondering how The Human Centipede and A Serbian Film compare to the likes of:

Salo
Cannibal Holocaust
Men Behind the Sun
Emanuelle in America
The New York Ripper
Seul Contre Tous
Last House on Dead End Street

Does current stuff compare to what was being done in the 1970s in particular?

For those who like OTT gore, check out The Story of Ricky / Riki Oh if you have not done so already.

[undeadbydawn.livejournal.com]

Ricky Oh is just bloody silly. I bought it expecting a brutally gory martial arts flick, instead got a lot of blatantly latex/polystyrene costume work and a final battle ripped directly from BrainDead

[khbrown.livejournal.com]

Story of Ricky is based on a manga, plus the film adaptation pre-dates Brain Dead, so I don't think it can be accused of being a rip-off. For me the crapness of the special effects is part of the appeal, same as with Bad Taste, the original Evil Dead etc.

I thought it worth mentioning because the unreality / silliness would seem to make it more palatable to those who don't like more realistic horror or gore.