A scary thing happened on the way to the Movie Forums - Horrorcrammers

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Awwww....I didn't hate it, even though my review was entirely backhanded. It at least feels its runtime, unlike the Wizard of Gore which feels eight hours long.
Memorable things happened in WoG. Occasionally.

CMBR was like watching paint dry. In fact, I think you literally watch paint dry for much of the film.



Memorable things happened in WoG. Occasionally.

CMBR was like watching paint dry. In fact, I think you literally watch paint dry for much of the film.
You didn't like the watercycle? I remember lots of watercycle.


I should note that I watched a much nicer looking copy of Color Me Blood Red than Wizard of Gore, which definitely affected by enjoyment. The primary colours in the former really pop.



Color Me Blood Red is even tamer and a far worse film. A 1 on multiple scales!

True on both cases.


I actually think it would be one of the few movies I'd struggle to give any stars at all. As bag as Lewis' films can sometimes be, this one was a real loser.



It's been a while, but I remember that being meaner. Blood Feast was more graphic, but also goofier, if I recall correctly.

I probably don't remember Maniacs well enough to be any authority on that, but I don't recall anything terribly transgressive in it. Or even that much meanness. I just know my 14 year old self was bored to tears. And that same 14 year old self found Blood Feast a fairly shocking experience.


As goofy as Blood Feast is, I don't think there is any way to have a scene where a man pulls a tongue out of a woman's mouth, and it not be at least seen as fairly mean spirited. Also, there is a scene of whipping, which for whatever reason, I always find pretty offensive. Maybe because once you remove the cow guts, and stare directly at unadorned violence, it becomes more real.


As for the Blood Red vs Wizard of Gore debate, you're insane. And this isn't me saying Wizard should be enjoyed. It's a slog in a lot of ways. But it's probably the only film by Lewis which I feel at least has some strange layers to unpack (almost certainly by mistake, but they are there). Blood Red is on the short list of the worst movies I've ever seen. I found it insufferable and boring and I almost never find any movies boring. It might be the only movie that I think people shouldn't like*. By mandate.That if you had any experience with it outside of hate, immediately go back and watch it again until you realize what a monstrosity of tedium it is.


*oops, forgot about Babydriver



That if you had any experience with it outside of hate, immediately go back and watch it again until you realize what a monstrosity of tedium it is.

I'd prefer to remember the good times (of me with the movie).


Also, I'd say The Gore Gore Girls is the only Lewis that's actually upsetting to some degree. The gleefully unhinged (if still crude) violence and the sense of dark humour give it a charge that's missing elsewhere in his work.




Also, I'd say The Gore Gore Girls is the only Lewis that's actually upsetting to some degree. The gleefully unhinged (if still crude) violence and the sense of dark humour give it a charge that's missing elsewhere in his work.

Oh, this is definitely his most legitimately vile film. And, likely even his best.



I don't have the HGL hate that most of the rest of you have.
Admittedly, my only experience with HGL was going to an HGL marathon at a theater filled with lots of other people.


And if Color Me Blood Red is the one I think it is, that was the one that actually sticks out in my mind because the side couple were fun.


I can't speculate how they'd play if I was watching them by myself. I don't think that would be enjoyable. Maybe Color Me Blood Red would still have its moments.


/still haven't seen The Gore Gore Girls.
(I should check my film diary at some point to refresh my memory of which ones I've seen)



Reading more of the interview, I think it's very likely that what are meant to be self-deprecating remarks are coming off more as flat and dismissive.

I mean "In theory, no, I don't find a movie like that boring"?

At the very best, I think that he seems to show a tendency for being thoughtless in how he talks about things that are collaborative efforts.

If I had done any kind of significant work on The Witch and then read the director saying "I hate The Witch, but that's another story", I'd be pretty disappointed and upset. (Then again, maybe the people who have worked with him understand how he tends to talk and don't take it personally, who knows.) My gut is still that it's disrespectful, and hopefully unintentionally so.

I don't know, I think if I had worked on The Witch, I suspect my feelings would be shaped more by my experience working on the movie, my opinion of the outcome, and subsequent work experiences (maybe relevantly, with the same director).


I'd hope I wouldn't be overly impacted by an offhand comment made in an interview seven years later while promoting another movie. Particularly since it's in print and the full meaning of which can't really be gleamed from the medium (lacking tone and other things that fall under the umbrella of context).


But everyone's different, I guess.



I probably don't remember Maniacs well enough to be any authority on that, but I don't recall anything terribly transgressive in it. Or even that much meanness. I just know my 14 year old self was bored to tears. And that same 14 year old self found Blood Feast a fairly shocking experience.


As goofy as Blood Feast is, I don't think there is any way to have a scene where a man pulls a tongue out of a woman's mouth, and it not be at least seen as fairly mean spirited. Also, there is a scene of whipping, which for whatever reason, I always find pretty offensive. Maybe because once you remove the cow guts, and stare directly at unadorned violence, it becomes more real.


As for the Blood Red vs Wizard of Gore debate, you're insane. And this isn't me saying Wizard should be enjoyed. It's a slog in a lot of ways. But it's probably the only film by Lewis which I feel at least has some strange layers to unpack (almost certainly by mistake, but they are there). Blood Red is on the short list of the worst movies I've ever seen. I found it insufferable and boring and I almost never find any movies boring. It might be the only movie that I think people shouldn't like*. By mandate.That if you had any experience with it outside of hate, immediately go back and watch it again until you realize what a monstrosity of tedium it is.


*oops, forgot about Babydriver
Maniacs is the closest HGL came to making a competent movie. It’s too slow and artless to content with the likes of TCM and falls somewhere just below the Town that Dreaded Sundown, but outside of its mind numbing ending, it is almost effective in its matter of fact meanness and violence. There’s a leg dismemberment that I recall being particularly effective, if also mean spirited.

I think all of HGL’s films are mean-spirited. They’re also mind-bogglingly incompetent and campy to the point that the mean-spirit gets dulled.

That said, CMBR is his only film that I pretty much hated. It offered nothing. No camp. No interesting incompetence. No mean-spirit. No spirit at all. An empty, hollow, nothing of a film.

An HGL ranking:

Gore Gore Girls
Blood Feast
2000 Maniacs
Wizard of Gore
Color Me Blood Red

I feel like I’m missing some but I don’t feel the urge to watch more either.



I believe Lewis once said that his standard for his own competence as a filmmaker was whether his movies were in focus. That being said, the fact that she shot them in bright pastel colours means that they're not unpleasant to look at, especially if you're watching a nicer copy. I'm definitely grading on a curve here, but I do appreciate that the few I've seen from him have a distinct visual identity. As to whether that means they're actually good, the jury's still out.



Rankings:


The Gore Gore Girls
Blood Feast
2000 Maniacs!
Color Me Blood Red
The Wizard of Gore



In regards to upsetting/disturbing films (The Last House on the Left, Cannibal Holocaust, Forced Entry, etc), do you guys think there's any cases where it's okay to judge other people for enjoying those kinds of films? I read a discussion a while back where a few people trashed everyone who's a fan of Salo and it got me thinking. Personally, I really don't care what people choose to watch. Of course, there's handful of extreme films I've seen which were too much for me, but I don't think less of the people who consider themselves to be fans of those films. Rather, I just think they have a better stomach for that kind of stuff than I do. And if you have the stomach for those films, there really isn't anything you can do about that, as far as I'm concerned. I also think that having weird interests in normal. It just depends on the person, their preferences, their tolerance for violence, etc.
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In regards to upsetting/disturbing films (The Last House on the Left, Cannibal Holocaust, Forced Entry, etc), do you guys think there's any cases where it's okay to judge other people for enjoying those kinds of films? I read a discussion a while back where a few people trashed everyone who's a fan of Salo and it got me thinking. Personally, I really don't care what people choose to watch. Of course, there's handful of extreme films I've seen which were too much for me, but I don't think less of the people who consider themselves to be fans of those films. Rather, I just think they have a better stomach for that kind of stuff than I do. And if you have the stomach for those films, there really isn't anything you can do about that, as far as I'm concerned. I also think that having weird interests in normal. It just depends on the person, their preferences, their tolerance for violence, etc.
I’m gonna say it’s usually not okay to judge someone for what movies they like (though “movies” like this Vomit Doll things made by the rapist with a name like Valentine would certainly be fair discussion to do so), I think it’s much more important to judge WHY they like it.

For instance, I once encountered someone asking for recommendations in r/horror. They wanted movies with dead children in them. They were also very particular about the state of the dead children that they wanted to be about (no gore, peaceful, like they’re sleeping). I clicked on their profile and saw they were active on Reddit subs dedicated to dead people photography and had made remarks on how “pretty” the dead children were. I reported them as quickly as possible because it was like gazing into the abyss.

Anywho, this was just an unnecessarily unpleasant way of expressing how it doesn’t really matter what movie this person liked. Why they liked it made them a detestable human being.

Man, I really hate the internet sometimes.



I’m gonna say it’s usually not okay to judge someone for what movies they like (though “movies” like this Vomit Doll things made by the rapist with a name like Valentine would certainly be fair discussion to do so), I think it’s much more important to judge WHY they like it.

For instance, I once encountered someone asking for recommendations in r/horror. They wanted movies with dead children in them. They were also very particular about the state of the dead children that they wanted to be about (no gore, peaceful, like they’re sleeping). I clicked on their profile and saw they were active on Reddit subs dedicated to dead people photography and had made remarks on how “pretty” the dead children were. I reported them as quickly as possible because it was like gazing into the abyss.

Anywho, this was just an unnecessarily unpleasant way of expressing how it doesn’t really matter what movie this person liked. Why they liked it made them a detestable human being.

Man, I really hate the internet sometimes.
Yeah, that's generally what I pay attention to. I've encountered plenty of completely fine people who enjoy films like Cannibal Holocaust and Salo for non-concerning reasons, and I don't have an issue with them at all. It all comes down to why they enjoy those films which matters.

I do think though that the more disturbing the film, the harder it will be to provide a justification for enjoying it. Like, if a movie consists of nothing but child porn or snuff, that'll be a much harder sell for me. But sure, I'll still hear the person out before I come to a conclusion on them.



I would say I'm against judging people based on what they watch, because it would open up criticism of my own well documented degenerate viewing habits. Judge not that ye not be judged...


But I think the exception MKS carves out is fair.



I read a discussion a while back where a few people trashed everyone who's a fan of Salo and it got me thinking.

This is because these people don't understand how art can function. It's one of the great fallacies that comes with thinking that movies are primarily made for 'entertainment purposes'. And why thinking of film through this specific lens narrows its value where people start to think watching something like Salo is about those in the audience being 'entertained' by the atrocities being committed on the characters.



Obviously film CAN entertain. But the over arching point of film needs to be defined much more broadly as something that is used to make us look at life and beauty and feelings and thoughts from different vantage points, and come away with a greater understanding what it is to be alive. To be an individual. To be a member of a community. To be a patriot. To be a revolutionary. To be a romantic or a nihilist. Film grants us passports to different ways of looking at the world, and a film like Salo (in short) allows us to contemplate the way in which authoritarianism manifests in society. How it warps those in power and how it affects those beneath such thumbs as these. It explores the relationship between these two groups in a way which is deliberately discomforting. And we don't watch it to be entertained. The better word, is we watch it to be engaged. And to hope to understand.



When people only comprehend art as something to passively accept while they watch, and to only reinforce previously held beliefs as they pass the time, and to never challenge establish norms or morals or political stances, then that's how we get these dullards out there who can only look at the violence of Salo and shake their head and wonder what's so fun about shit-eating.



It's just a bad bad bad bad bad opinion to judge anyone's personality on their taste in film, without there first being a discussion of what they think films can do. And what they are getting from it. Admittedly, a lot of people are still not going to grasp this, even after a good long talking to. But you can't save everyone from their paralyzingly awful opinions.



We’re all horror fans here. I’m sure someone in our lives judged us for liking horror at one time or another.