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

yeah I've been thinking of watching that but dunno if I could sell it to my wife

y'know, based on the description

The issue with Megan is Missing that was messing with my head relates directly to my first post about it -- the rape is not just in the movie, but it is being filmed for the titillation of others. In the movie, Megan's photo was identified on a fetish porn site, and you can imagine where it goes from there. So there were multiple layers to the rape --
1) the fact that it was happening at all
2) the fact that the viewer is subsequently watching it as a viewer of the movie "Megan is Missing" and
3) the fact that in the movie "Megan is Missing" it was intended to be used in a titillating fashion for people (who?) to presumably pay for and watch on the internet for their own pleasure

The combination of those three things was what sent me over the edge into intrusive thoughts and general mental upset.

That said, it's not that it was gratuitous or played for titillation for the viewer of "Megan is Missing"; it's that it was horrifically violent and played for titillation for the viewer of rape porn, which is not the same thing as the movie Megan is Missing.

Does that clarify what bothered me a little better? I wasn't prepared to really go into it in that much detail, but it's much more complicated than "yuk child rape."

yo, that makes perfect sense, yo.

Yes, it totally does.

I also watched THE BASEMENT, a super-fun 8mm movie shot by a bunch of dorks in 1989 (but I can post it here since it didn't get released until 2011). It's an anthology film, so you get 4x the stupidness. All the dialogue is dubbed in, of course, and it's really foul-mouthed, which is amusingly incongruous with the squeaky-clean we-made-this-in-high-school vibe. Highly enjoyable.

josh do you know what a trauma trigger is

No, I totally get it. I wasn't asking to be snide, just asking if it mattered. There's a whole strain of the campily horrible stuff - Gordon Lewis, Peter Jackson, Troma, et al. - stuff that just goes so extreme it gets ridiculous, by design. But it's a tricky road, why any/all portrayals of rape in film are bad (even though more often than not I find it extremely troubling, too, no matter the context) but the myriad other violations in horror movies are somehow quantifiably less offensive. Like, a fake rape riles, but a fake beheading or disemboweling or cannibalism or flaying? Eh. You know? There is so much tangled up psychologically with sex and violence and their depiction that I suppose it stands to reason their combination in the most visceral, unpleasant sense would be exponentially harder to unpack.

Man, I totally forgot about Deadgirl. I'm not sure that movie is ultimately any good, but there's definitely something going on there.

Like, a fake rape riles, but a fake beheading or disemboweling or cannibalism or flaying? Eh.

Real rape happens often to a lot of people, or to people that we know and often are close to. Beheading and disemboweling and cannibalism... not so much.

Beheading videos are such the rage that within just the last week Facebook went back and forth on allowing them, no?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/22/facebook-allows-beheading-videos-graphic-content_n_4143244.html

That does not make beheading something that happens more often or to more people than rape.

In case it needs to be said, I am in no way saying that rape should never be depicted in movies (just as I don't think rape jokes are categorically off limits), but I am absolutely saying that it is important to criticize depictions of rape that portray rape as sexy, or positive, or hilarious at the expense of the person being raped. Mostly just that these conversations are important.

My other point is that there's nothing wrong with drawing boundaries about what you will and won't see, really for any reason.

Agree on both points. But my point was that the simulated depiction of horrible acts, no matter how horrifying or how often they do or don't happen in real life, is a moot debate. It's all horrifying. What's intolerable for one may not be for another, yes, but I can't pinpoint one fake transgression as necessarily worse than another. One of the most frightening things I've ever seen in a film was in "Schindler's List," seeing the faces of those little kids hiding in a pool of raw sewage, caught in the beam of a flashlight as they were discovered. Real kids, fake shit, recreating something that really happened. Haunts me to this day. Is it fair to say the scene was played for thrills, in at least one definition of the word? I think so. Where would I put it on a tier of "horror?" Dunno. How would I feel if it was played for laughs? Likely offended.

But my point was that the simulated depiction of horrible acts, no matter how horrifying or how often they do or don't happen in real life, is a moot debate. It's all horrifying. What's intolerable for one may not be for another, yes, but I can't pinpoint one fake transgression as necessarily worse than another.

congrats

Spielberg, so much to answer for

congrats

Oh, you know what I mean. I mean, it's so surreal to even offer the dialectic, but is watching a zombie perform oral sex with a disembodied head in a self-consciously OTT movie harder to watch than a slave being beaten or whipped into a bloody pulp? They're both horrible, but the latter is based in history and not intended as transgressive, whereas the former is totally invented and intended to shock. Does the fact that the first is played as twisted comedy make it worse, or harder to watch than the latter simulated act? Obviously different eyes and brains will have different reactions, but as much as I understand why that is, I really can't say one is qualitatively "worse" than the other.

Why are you even making that comparison? I mean, my original point was that it's important to have discussions about rape scenes in movies. Is it also important to discuss beheading, et al? It's not important to me, but I wouldn't begrudge someone else doing it. Is it important to discuss a movie in which someone beats a slave into a bloody pulp? Hell yes it is - context, intent, perspective, the race of the people involved in making the movie, just to name a few things.

It's silly to set up that dichotomy and not what this conversation has even been about, other than my initial response to point out (correctly) that rape has a real life impact on quantitatively more people than beheading and cannibalism do.

One of six U.S. women has experienced an attempted or completed rape.[146] More than a quarter of college age women report having experienced a rape or rape attempt since age 14.[147] Some types of rape are excluded from official reports altogether (the FBI's definition, for example, used to exclude all rapes except forcible rapes of females), because a significant number of rapes go unreported even when they are included as reportable rapes, and also because a significant number of rapes reported to the police do not advance to prosecution.[148]

yeah we're not really talking abt qualitatively ranking the horrific, the point is that rape is still a sickeningly common epidemic, so there's going to be a heightened sensitivity towards it, especially in a genre that has had a historically problematic relationship with the depiction of woman as it is. I brought the reanimator up because it's such a goofily surreal movie but ms carl is right to point out that that makes it worse in many ways.

on a related note, I didn't like the evil dead remake much anyway but retaining the woods rape scene was pretty o_O - that was like the first plot point on the list they should've given an overhaul

on a related note, I didn't like the evil dead remake much anyway but retaining the woods rape scene was pretty o_O - that was like the first plot point on the list they should've given an overhaul

― a hard dom is good to find (Edward III), Friday, 25 October 2013 09:34 (4 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah, that pissed me off on a grand scale, doubly so the apparent 'oh it's just a headnod' blitheness about it

Yeah, of all the things to keep from the original ...

I was just reacting, honestly, to the way some, including me, find certain things more offensive or horrific than others, often for deeply personal reasons. But trying to be objective about it, I found/find it really hard to say one incredibly gruesome, horrible thing to be worse than another, even when I'm as guilty as the aforementioned as anyone else. Murder is far more common than rape, but that doesn't make the rampant depiction of murder in movies less horrible. We've just all been more systematically inured. Which is in and of itself disturbing. The fact that rape doesn't find its way casually into many films, horror or otherwise, shows how seriously it is (and should be taken), but the fact that gruesome murders pervade cinema - man, the glut of serial killer films alone - shows how far we've been shifted as a society.

also: when a man is writing/directing a scene in which a woman is being raped for cheap horror thrills (which ime is the usual permutation) there are just so many levels to that which are ferociously and fundamentally indefensible xp

Murder is far more common than rape

uh, are you sure about that

especially in a genre that has had a historically problematic relationship with the depiction of woman as it is

Yes yes, a very good point. This stuff doesn't happen in a vacuum. Back to my initial comments, a lot of my reluctance to watch a movie like Dead Girl is that I don't trust the genre.

based on those stats above it seems like 30 million women in this country have dealt w/at least an attempted rape

The fact that rape doesn't find its way casually into many films, horror or otherwise

Are you sure about that?

yeah josh, i'm trying very hard to not engage in a typical ilx pile-on here, but i don't think i've known or met anyone who's been murdered xxxp

yeah I don't think 1 in 6 american women have been victims of murder or attempted murder

I'm not calling you out man cuz I'm guilty in this area as well, but there's a lot of male privilege encoded in yr posts, it's shit we don't have to worry abt on a day to day basis, so we don't

the murder rate in the US *is* insanely high, and is more readily reported/easier to quantify than rape ("oh hey look there's a dead body!"), making statistical comparison a bit tricky. I can't authoritatively say that Josh is wrong but I dunno if the numbers are really that clear.

RAINN says someone is sexually assaulted every 2 minutes in the US. Dunno if the murder rate is quite that high.

this says 1 murder ever 34 minutes

i don't think i've known or met anyone who's been murdered
i have! but i've known a lot more people who have been raped. either way, i'm not trying to rank which is more horrifying. that's a waste of time.

and one rape every 6 minutes

xp

I too have known victims of both crimes.

aaaaanyway

what else should I get at the store this week besides American Mary?

I watched Grave Encounters last night and that was fun as hell.

Somebody upthread said it was the natural evolution of the found footage genre and I can agree with that. It had the same kind of eerie creepiness of the best parts of the PA movies, but felt more dangerous, probably because it didn't wait until the last ten minutes of the movie to cram in all the complete batshittery. Like you know early on that whatever's haunting that asylum means serious business. Also I love haunted asylums as settings for movies!!!

I'm still so angry at Twixt for totally squandering its initial fantastic batshittedness

I've pretty much avoided the entire "found footage" subgenre, I hated Blair Witch Project so much. That and my wife hates watching too much shakey handheld camera work. I realize these prejudices are perhaps unfounded.

xp

stable mo collier

I love that I just xposted you and yet both of us used expanded versions of "batshit"

excision was good, lords of salem was surprisingly good but not everyone feels the same

xp to shakey

Ray Wise AND Traci Lords I'm there

Let's just say that murder is plenty prevalent and leave it at that. If you all want to play semantics/statistics police, that's cool. My whole point was this stuff as depicted in movies can't be qualified/quantified, or per the near above

I'm not trying to rank which is more horrifying. that's a waste of time.

All right, fine, VHS 2 is streaming on Netflix, let's hope it sucks less than the first one

Infinitely better, might do a poll for best segment but I think I know which one will win

A neighbor of mine is really into horror movies, and he recommended one particular segment from V/H/S 2. Something about a cult?

BTW, I want to re-rup my support for "The Tall Man," a movie that totally took me by surprise on several levels. Seems to be back on Netflix after a bit?

Excellent film, but no more "horror" than Mary Higgins Clark.

Well, it starts out like a more traditional horror film ...

OK, first V/H/S 2 segment, with the eye, was stupid. One down ...

Second segment basically Rec 3 ish, though I'm not sure I've ever seen the zom-cam before. Writing and acting uniformly awful so far.