ok lets all shit our pants to something new: post 2005 horror film thread

last year a video of two dudes murdering another dude w/ a hammer was going around & i tried watching it - p much the most horrifying & unsettling thing ive ever seen - think there may have been an ilx thread abt it? ive watched some p fucked up stuff (martyrs, men behind the sun) but the experience of watching that vid was less dissociative & manageable than any movie has been. basically unbearable ime

― Lamp, Sunday, July 18, 2010 10:42 AM (2 days ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

i think i've heard of that. i've seen some pretty grotesque stuff on the internet that i wish i could unwatch (bme pain olympics....) but i'm terrified of real violence. i've passed out watching a video in health class, passed out getting my blood drawn, and strangest of all passed out during an episode of nip/tuck (not real violence, wtf.) but i'm fascinated by extreme horror, i loved martyrs, er, "love" might not be the word. haven't seen men behind the sun yet. the feeling leading up to watching a really horrifying movie is intense, i feel really anxious and i'm not sure if i really want to do it, but knowing that its not real and that i can dissociate and analyze it makes me able to go through with it. and i like the rush of doing that, the rush makes it feel more real and triggers more interesting thoughts.

― karl...arlk...rlka...lkar..., Sunday, July 18, 2010 10:59 AM (2 days ago) Bookmark

man, i'm a lot more squeamish than you all. i never seek out real gore/mayhem footage. whole idea gives me the willies. for me, the process by which i distance myself from a gory death in a horror movie isn't that much different from the process by which i distance myself from scary or intense scenes in movies of other sorts. horror isn't special in this regard, it's just more extreme. i mean, when i was a kid, darth vader kinda freaked me out. and i got all white-knuckle panicky during that car chase scene w/ the woman strapped to the hood in death proof.

i do understand the allure of the forbidden and the "extreme", though, and sometimes get off on the taboo-busting rush karl describes. baise-moi definitely hit me that way. but i don't think that this sensation really has anything to do with horror, per se. it properly belongs to the most degraded sorts of exploitation films, and to plain old porn. just cuz awful shit happens in a movie doesn't make it horror.[/crotchety]

i think that sensation has a lot to do with horror - i mean, there are certain cultural/social taboos that aren't associated with horror, but quite a lot of them, esp. as regards the body are stock in trade of the genre, right?

jesus, had never heard about this hammer vid and I never want to see it.

and while I've only really dabbled in the truly extreme horror stuff, karl's excellent post gets at a lot of what makes the experience... well, not enjoyable, really. memorable? exciting?

I thought martyrs was excellent as well and a big part of that was the extreme anxiety it caused me. particularly because the movie switches gears radically a few times throughout its runtime and I was never able to truly get my bearings. definitely a rush of some sort.

and actually not all that different from the sustained dread I felt watching inland empire late at night recently. same feeling of unease, but streamlined and amplified x100.

saw a serbian film last night, i am not a big fan of the gore flicks (i like movies that stick with me after i watch them and gore, while sometimes physically taxing, is sort of in one ear out the other) but i was really impressed with it. i mean, yeah, it's fucking brutal but there's something to be said about a) the incredible job the dudes did making it so cohesive, b) the clear, like, anger apparent in the script/movie/etc, c) the fact that it is basically the most scathing commentary on manhood i think i have ever seen.

vincent cassel does a great old school chewing-the-scenery villain turn in sheitan

I watched the nick berg video back in the day and yeah there's some stuff you can't unsee

A few days after seeing it I came to the conclusion that A Serbian Film is basically bullshit.

I mean it's only been 12 hours and I think it needs more time to sink in because I'm slow but I do feel at the moment that it's better than any stupid gore porn movie I've seen except maybe like Broken or something. HAven't een Martyrs though.

by broken do you mean the broken cuz I've never heard anybody rep for that one

and actually not all that different from the sustained dread I felt watching inland empire late at night recently. same feeling of unease, but streamlined and amplified x100.

― The world’s most violent pizza delivery man (Alan N)

Funny you say that, because I have thought a lot about the similarity between the feelings that I get from Lynch movies and extreme horror. I think Lynch is able to create situations that bring about really powerful emotional reactions, but he does it in a relatively subtle way, more through juxtaposition of contrasting elements than just extremity (not that horror never does this,) and the emotions are more than just disgust or anxiety or fear. A bunch of examples from Blue Velvet and Twin Peaks come to mind, hell, any one of his movies. He is able to combine very odd sensations in a way that heightens them, e.g. Frank Booth's expode-at-any-moment anger sound-tracked by "In Dreams", and Dorothy walks out of the back room with her hair over her face like a sleepwalker. Throughout a Lynch movie I squirm and my palms get sweaty but its almost always balanced out by an incredible sweetness that is only effective when the dark elements make the sweetness really necessary (Sandy telling Jeffrey about her dream,) and there is always something creeping underneath the sweetness. I'm obsessed with Lynch and could go on forever and this isn't the place, so I'll stop before it gets too vague and nonsensical.

Anyway, yeah, I think David Lynch is the master of anxiety, but he is also fantastic at rewarding your anxiety and soothing you after it all. The entire arc of Eraserhead works this way imo.

surprised by martyrs fandom. was bored by that one. seemed pretty exciting at first, but the director was unconcerned with anything other than delivering carnage, so it got old fast.

sheitan's pretty great, but only really takes off when vincent cassel is onscreen. otherwise, it's just okay. probably would have dug it more if the ending had been 10% less incoherent, and/or the "wild kids" 10% less irritating (though both were clearly intentional). reminded me a bit too much of frontiere(s), though funnier and less punishing.

and actually not all that different from the sustained dread I felt watching inland empire late at night recently. same feeling of unease, but streamlined and amplified x100.

― The world’s most violent pizza delivery man (Alan N)

Funny you say that, because I have thought a lot about the similarity between the feelings that I get from Lynch movies and extreme horror. I think Lynch is able to create situations that bring about really powerful emotional reactions, but he does it in a relatively subtle way, more through juxtaposition of contrasting elements than just extremity (not that horror never does this,) and the emotions are more than just disgust or anxiety or fear.

― karl...arlk...rlka...lkar..., Tuesday, July 20, 2010 12:05 PM (10 minutes ago) Bookmark

yeah, i wanted to respond to that, too. the feelings i experienced while watching inland empire were very similar to karl's description of the anticipation of extreme/transgressive horror. especially during the scenes leading up to nikki's meeting with the doctor/therapist/whatever. i felt jittery and unbelievably tense, almost traumatized by anxiety. i felt sick, as though some terrible line were being crossed, and even considered stepping out of the theater to gather my wits. at the same time, i was able to stand outside my reactions and observe them as interesting psychological phenomena. have long been struck by lynch's ability to elicit such deep, profound responses from such few and simple tools. those long shots of dark corridors in the first section of lost highway, for instance, absolutely terrify me. but they're just shots of dark hallways! nothing happens, but the sense of menace and impossible possibility is just overwhelming. suspect that lynch achieves a lot of this by the combination of image and sound in the moment -- not so much by narratively creating a situation that will arouse certain feelings.

lynch achieves a lot of this by the combination of image and sound

yes, Lynch is sooooo good at combining intricate sound design and imagery/color. he makes most other directors, even very good ones, seem completely ham-handed. it makes me want to gush in ways that people who don't like Lynch would find very easy to make fun of. i guess i'll just say it makes a lot of sense to me that Lynch got into film through painting.

the making-of bonus features on the inland empire dvd were really eye-opening for me -- i'd been a lynch fan for a long time but never watched any documentaries (were there any before "lynch"?) or read much about him beyond entertainment mag stuff -- because you can see what *total control* he exercises over every aspect of the movie, down to repainting the walls or furniture if the shade doesn't match the effect he wants/saw in his head.

yeah, i saw that! i'd read enough in interviews and stuff to know that he was like that, but to actually see it was really cool.

"surprised by martyrs fandom. was bored by that one. seemed pretty exciting at first, but the director was unconcerned with anything other than delivering carnage"

in what way? it struck me as a kind of quiet, muted violence, compared with say Prince of Persia. (not in terms of graphicness, [it certainly is graphic] but sensibility) by the end it is very clinical.

re: lynch -- none of the intentionally creepy movies are effective to me in that way, because the over-the-top elements completely undercut any menace, and on some level, lynch definitely wants to make us laugh, he has an odd sense of humor and he can't help himself, which undercuts every impulse to be frightened, but the straight story is certainly creepy in a pure way. How do you make matthew farnsworth sinister? He did it!

hm, i definitely think Lynch has a sense of humor, but i doubt we'd agree on what he intended as "over-the-top" and humorous. The Straight Story i didn't find remotely creepy in any way.

how are you guys seeing A Serbian Film? downloading it?

xpost

reading back what I wrote this morning - I'd like to clarify that I do think that inland empire is a better film than martyrs. (which I also liked quite a bit.) the more I think on it, the more I feel like inland empire is some kind of masterpiece specifically for the same audio/visual qualities a couple of you have mentioned already. masterful stuff.

and upping the quick edits/visceral carnage does not necessarily make for a better film. (as my comments may have read.) tho both that and the drawn-out, hypnotic style inland empire goes for are obviously both valid methods and both hit me the same way in the end - prolonged anxiety/dread.

and yeah, "clinical" is exactly the right word to describe the last act of martyrs. hard to argue with the notion that martyrs is interested in doling out carnage but I don't think that's all that's going on there either.

re: straight story creepiness
http://www.sullivanmovies.com/broadcast_library/new_images/mini-series/anne_richard.jpg
versus
http://www.lynchnet.com/absent/farnsworth.jpg

well, the 1st half of martyrs pays more attention to ad-style slickness and people being blasted through doors (etc.) than character development, credible plotting, performances, ideas, etc. 2nd half gets all mysterioso and more clinical (i.e., suspense-driven), themes come to the fore, but it all still seemed pretty silly to me. didn't care about the characters or their plight, didn't believe in the situation depicted, was bugged by the pop style. not saying that it's a terrible movie. it's very well made, but didn't work for or appeal to me.

you saw a different martyrs than I did

the 1st half of martyrs pays more attention to ad-style slickness and people being blasted through doors (etc.) than character development

the time laugier spends with the family in the beginning shows that he's interested in developing characters, not just moving targets. if the stylistic trappings of the film are turning you off I guess that will keep you from getting fully immersed, but I imagine most people find martyrs wrenching and draining because they care about the characters, not because the director is producing a slick + empty gorefest. also thought the acting in martyrs was top-notch across the board.

(most of what you said about martyrs is how I felt about hostel tbh)

I don't remember martyrs having any characters, just modes, IE "vengeful," "victim," "villain." we feel sympathy because we are watching defenseless people go through unspeakable pain, not because we know them.

^ otm

loathed hostel, kinda dug hostel 2. a bit of real humor and some likable, quasi-credible characters go a long way. actors in martyrs did a good job of being all freaked out and terrified, opening their eyes really wide, but i only cared about the characters to the extent that i'll always care about women/children put in distressing situations. not hard to win that kind of sympathy/empathy. and i'm probably coming down too hard on the film, but i just never got into it. watched it all the way through without giving a damn about anything that happened. part of that comes down to the fact that i never believed that anyone was gonna get out alive.

it's an old truism that you can break through an audience's reserve by doing something really awful (e.g. killing a cute kid) - thereafter, they'll never know quite how far you'll be willing to go and will therefore not be able to maintain skeptical distance. but it works in reverse, too. if the audience fully expects that the worst will eventually happen to everyone onscreen, no matter what they do, there's no reason to emotionally invest in their struggles. maybe i'm losing the ability to emotionally relate to the more extreme forms of survival/endurance horror in general. my expectation is that total bleakness will triumph in the end, and i therefore can't even force myself to care about the sacrificial lambs offered.

I hadn't thought of it that way before re: pitfalls of unrelenting bleakness. That's an excellent point.

not to spoil it, but the "good guys" kind of won in martyrs from my viewing, but I was watching on a laptop with the subtitles in a separate text editor.

oddly, i first thought of this a few years back while watching a different serbian film. in that film, mehanizam, a psychotic hitman abducts a teacher and a cabdriver and brutalizes them for a couple hours as he forces them to accompany him on a rape/murder spree. was gripping until i realized that the filmmakers had this didactic/philosophical structure set up wherein the teacher's attempts to extricate herself from the situation could not succeed unless the cabbie helped her out, and the cabbie, for philosophical reasons of his own, refused to engage with anything. at which point i stopped caring.

since then, i've found it hard to emotionally invest in these types of films, and often when i do (eden lake), i wind up feeling manipulated and abused.

the "good guys" kind of won in martyrs

i might agree, but that's put an awful lot of stress on the "kind of"

^ ...that puts...

well it's at least as much a victory as passing health care HEYO!

maybe it's really lazy to repost something I posted upthread, but since you brought up eden lake:

I can understand somebody being haunted by eden lake, and not just cause it's showing you horrible things - it's well done so what you're seeing has a good chance of getting under your skin.

but it felt mechanical to me - I could see the chess pieces getting set up on the board from the beginning, and I really didn't get surprised by any of the subsequent moves. I can't imagine any horror film fan would? whereas something like martyrs, the chess pieces get set up on the board and then WHAM BAM wait I didn't know we were boxing I thought we were just playing chessssss

the reward in emotionally investing yourself in martyrs is an intellectual one, and it's not a reward that a formulaic film like eden lake can deliver. whatever you want to say about martyrs, I don't think you can call it predictable.

eh, I think I love this movie too much to write rationally about it.

would agree entirely that martyrs wasn't predictable and that eden lake was. it was fairly easy to predict all the major plot movements in eden lake, but i was no less emotionally involved with the characters for that. that kind of sympathetic identification arises more from performance, dialogue and directorial emphasis than from plot or theme.

what would you say is the reward obtained by emotionally investing in martyrs?

catharsis?

makes sense. that's always the promised reward for vicariously experiencing someone else's martyrdom. only recent film that i felt something like catharsis in response to = lars von trier's breaking the waves. spent several minutes weeping as the credits rolled, not in sadness or anger, exactly, but in something almost exultant/grateful that arose out of those emotions. but that movie (and its star, emily watson) had to work so goddam hard to develop the sympathy and understanding required to pull off the emotional effect. didn't see martyrs doing anything similar, but you know, different strokes...

I was really surprised & pleased with Black Death. It had a really small cinema showing but horror fans need to lovefilm/netflix it hard....

Its the missing link between Witchfinder General & The Wicker Man.

2 of the best ever British horror films imho.

and I agree with Eden Lake sticking with you, but I feel that might be more for britishers. In the UK, the setting, the characters & the antagonists are so close to real life. Kids like that are regularly stabbing each other in my neighbourhood. whereas I was never that worried about meeting a knife-gloved killer in my dreams...

seeing Black Death and probably interviewing the director later this week - I kinda hated Severance so I'm hoping you're right about its goodness.

Ok halfway through "the children" right now and holy fucking shit, why have I not heard more about this film.

never heard of it. checking other reviews gets me all curious. will further.

Ok that was absolutely fantastic.

Ok

want

NOTE: do not watch the crappy terrible trailer for this.

I think this might be my favorite modern british horror film

that good huh? up on the netflix queue it goes

Yeah, The Children is great.

turned it off

I'm a wuss; hate broken bones protruding from skin

ok just watched the end

fukd up film

Ok so def not a new film per se but a recent compilation by Other Cinema Digital called Experiments in Terror is half awful and half awesome. Most of the modernish stuff is kinda artso-crap, but the standouts are "Outer Space" by Peter Tscherkassky which is v v unsettling and the completely and totally unhinged "Dawn of the Evil Millenium" by Damon Packard. Worth a run through if you dig weirdo gonzo stuff.

I'm a wuss; hate broken bones protruding from skin

don't watch Broken