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

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First, there is almost a complete lack of exploitative sexual violence stuff. There is violence in a sexual context (because the killer's problems are all bound up in his unresolved issues about his mother's sex work and seeing women who are sexually active is clearly a trigger for him), but the way that it's shot doesn't feel like a bunch of scenes were assembled clearly for the purpose of displaying female bodies for titillation alongside their brutal murders. There's one shot that falls in to that category (an unnecessary--though not horribly excessive--full frontal shot of a woman getting into a bathtub), but there's a nice dearth of "This woman is going to be killed horribly, but first let's contrive to get her shirt off."
This is interesting to me because Maniac is the film that I "credit" with making me understand the "Horror movies are misogynist" complaint.** I was going to mention it before you watched it and now I'm glad I didn't.
I was in my 20s and it was the first time that I recognized how a movie was manipulating my horny male brain. "I normally like seeing boobies, but all the killing ruins it." This is a momentous epiphany for a young straight male. I'm being absurd for humor's sake but I guess you know what I mean. The movie was giving me what I thought I wanted but it was making me feel bad about wanting it. So hearing you say that this is precisely NOT what it's doing is intriguing. I always intended to revisit this and now even more so.

**I want to repeat that I haven't seen this since the 90s, so I'm not making the claim that this film is especially misogynistic. I'd have to watch it again to make that determination.**

EDIT: Re-reading that, I'm not sure if I'm expressing myself well. Short version:
What I'm trying to say is that in my memory every murder was preceded by a woman's shirt coming off, so I'm surprised to hear you say that's not the case.
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I hear ya. Long before I ever saw TCM, I saw the wonderful Terror In The Aisles, which contains that scene and I was just mesmerized. From that whole movie, that scene stood out to me the most. I don't know what that says about me.

Terror in the Aisles is fantastic.Hosted by the wonderful Donald Pleasence and Nancy Allen.



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The Carpet of Horror (1962)
The White Spider (1963)
The Strangler of Blackmoor Castle (1963)
Room 13 (1964)
The Sinister Monk (1965)





Continuing my Harald Reinl / Krimi journey with these five. Carpet of Horror is not quite as absurd as the title would suggest. (I hoped it would be). But again, all of these were solid thrillers that I can recommend to the easily-amused among us. I'd probably steer horror fans toward Blackmoor Castle first. Lots of fog and a creepy bad guy that decapitates his victims. (Veterans of Rumpled's Guess-the-Gif game will no doubt recognize a certain unfortunate motorcyclist.) Room 13 has a real giallo thing going on with its razorblade murders. And at least 2 of these films has a killer that causes instant strangulation with a crack of a whip. Not sure about the science there but it looks cool.







Yeah, but TCM has almost no gore in it at all. It's all just how startling and punishing it is. We watched the hammer scene the other night and the guy starts having a seizure on the floor (which as a doctor, I really appreciate) and so he hits him again to stop his seizure and then just drags him in and slams the door. And other than just hanging a fighting and flailing Pam on the ****ing hook and then just turning around and going back to his business while she screams, I think that might still be the most intense moment in the movie and in the conversation for all of Horror cinema.
It has been quite a while since I saw TCM, so there's a chance that time has dulled my memory of the killing sequences. I guess to further be specific about what I mean by "upsetting", there are certain things that just haunt me for days/weeks, and TCM wasn't that way.

Aside, if you can find it, I would love to read the article about I Spit On Your Grave. I found that movie so ugly I would really like to hear a perspective where it was cathartic for a victim.
It's in a book I have, so I don't have the essay. But here is an interview with the same writer discussing it, and I think it's more revealing (and actually relevant to the conversation we're having right now) than her original review. I really like where she talks about how she had one reaction to the film while her film professor (also a rape survivor) had the completely opposite reaction.

https://www.fangoria.com/original/pr...on-your-grave/

EDIT: Re-reading that, I'm not sure if I'm expressing myself well. Short version: What I'm trying to say is that in my memory every murder was preceded by a woman's shirt coming off, so I'm surprised to hear you say that's not the case.
Well, to be fair I was working out while I was watching it, so there were times I wasn't always looking at the screen. I may have just missed some nudity.

But for example, in the opening sequence where he attacks the sex worker, he actually orders her to keep her clothing ON. The only nudity that made an impression was the nude woman getting into the bath (and later the same woman has her robe slightly pushed aside over her breast). The couple in the car are definitely up to sexiness, but I don't remember nudity there.



So.... it's been a while since I've seen I Spit on Your Grave and haven't been itching for a rewatch because of the subject matter (despite having bought a pricey box set at one point, which is sitting on my shelf gathering dust), but I think the best defense of the movie is that it's an ugly movie about ugly subject matter. Having unfortunately seen my share of movies where we're supposed to find the rape scenes titillating (one of those sentences that makes you reconsider some life choices), I never got that sense from this movie. And I think it deserves some credit for showing the naked ugliness of the mentality of the rapists before they rape the heroine. I suspect there are fair criticisms of how well the heroine is developed and how male gazey the camerawork may or may not be, and I haven't seen the movie recently enough to mount a defense of these aspects. But I also think its overall rough construction let me engage with those aspects above better than a more carefully directed movie. I suspect if it was made by somebody like Michael Haneke, who is more eager to manipulate the audience when dealing with upsetting subject matter, I probably would have hated it.



Well, to be fair I was working out while I was watching it, so there were times I wasn't always looking at the screen. I may have just missed some nudity.

But for example, in the opening sequence where he attacks the sex worker, he actually orders her to keep her clothing ON. The only nudity that made an impression was the nude woman getting into the bath (and later the same woman has her robe slightly pushed aside over her breast). The couple in the car are definitely up to sexiness, but I don't remember nudity there.
Maybe you watched the PureFlix version



Maybe you watched the PureFlix version
Maybe. Can you guys confirm that the film Maniac is 11 minutes long? Some credits, some establishing shots of a subway station, and then some credits again?



So.... it's been a while since I've seen I Spit on Your Grave and haven't been itching for a rewatch because of the subject matter (despite having bought a pricey box set at one point, which is sitting on my shelf gathering dust), but I think the best defense of the movie is that it's an ugly movie about ugly subject matter. Having unfortunately seen my share of movies where we're supposed to find the rape scenes titillating (one of those sentences that makes you reconsider some life choices), I never got that sense from this movie. And I think it deserves some credit for showing the naked ugliness of the mentality of the rapists before they rape the heroine. I suspect there are fair criticisms of how well the heroine is developed and how male gazey the camerawork may or may not be, and I haven't seen the movie recently enough to mount a defense of these aspects. But I also think its overall rough construction let me engage with those aspects above better than a more carefully directed movie. I suspect if it was made by somebody like Michael Haneke, who is more eager to manipulate the audience when dealing with upsetting subject matter, I probably would have hated it.
My blu-ray had Joe Bob Brigg's commentary and he successfully convinced me of the film's value and quality after being offput but it's ugly incompetence.

It's a far cry from Maniac. Which is great and as artful as any grindhouse type flick could ever be.



Maybe. Can you guys confirm that the film Maniac is 11 minutes long? Some credits, some establishing shots of a subway station, and then some credits again?
As long as it left in the Sharon Mitchell cameo, you watched the right version.



My blu-ray had Joe Bob Brigg's commentary and he successfully convinced me of the film's value and quality after being offput but it's ugly incompetence.

It's a far cry from Maniac. Which is great and as artful as any grindhouse type flick could ever be.

Wonder what commentaries are on my copy.


*stares at shelf*


We will never know.



Wonder what commentaries are on my copy.


*stares at shelf*


We will never know.
Is yours the 4K?



My lack of interest in I Spit on Your Grave is less to do with the content, per se, and more to do with what I perceive (and, hey, maybe I'm wrong) as being the structure of it.

I don't enjoy films where there is protracted victimization of people, whether that be rape or torture or whatever. (Though when you throw in male gaze stuff I find it extra repulsive.) It is the opposite of why I come to horror movies. And I actually feel that way about the "revenge" portion of films as well.

For example, in the film Otto there is a long sequence where the family of a kidnapped girl
WARNING: spoilers below
torture the man they believe has kidnapped her
. I find that kind of stuff unbearable.

I also sometimes get the sense that there was some glee in designing the victimization portion and then the revenge part is this counterweight that gives the story a context of "rah rah survivor!" that then justifies what came in the first part.

This kind of connects back to the sense of why someone likes something. Sometimes I get a vibe about what the filmmakers were enjoying putting on screen and it can be off-putting.



The most intense moment in TCM was when the lady was having dinner with the family.

I've taken the hit on I Spit on Your Grave and I have zero desire to do so again. It felt like an hour before they had one scene in the church and the film turned. The problem is the ineptitude of the director/writer to make it worth the pain.

WARNING: "Spoilers" spoilers below
It didn't help that I didn't buy that the woman who was victimized earlier teasing the men and leading them on before getting her revenge. I can't see victims of sexual assault doing that at all. At least they didn't glamorize the perpetrators?



*Spits* I won't even bother guilting you into sending me your copy.
It would be pretty funny if I end up hating the movie on a rewatch.



It would be pretty funny if I end up hating the movie on a rewatch.
Feel free to send me your copy if you do. #feedthebeast



Feel free to send me your copy if you do. #feedthebeast
Fine, but I'm keeping the magnets.



Victim of The Night
Terror in the Aisles is fantastic.Hosted by the wonderful Donald Pleasence and Nancy Allen.



"It's only a movie."
I enjoy it so much.