The House Next Door

First, I’d like to thank Kelly for a thoughtful essay on one of our most maligned genres. Most consider horror a step above porn. As a regular contributor to Fangoria, I can attest there are several compelling horror titles out there well worth seeking out—many of them independent. Of course, remember that Val Lewton’s classy horror pictures “Cat People” and “I Walked With a Zombie” were considered total B-pictures and have outlasted many of the A-titles of their time. “Night of the Living Dead” and “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre” are fairly well acknowledged as classics—or at the very least considered classics of their genre. There have been many good arguments made that horror shows the sign of the times, and if you want to see what the 1970s were like you should rent “TCM”, just as watching the 1950s alien invasion films got across feelings of the Cold War through allegory. Hindsight being 20/20, in some cases these films were made for a quick buck and only in retrospect do they seem like time capsules of their era.

That said, I thought “Wolf Creek” was a very weak offering.

--- Are the critics simply out of touch? Well, yes. Because if you can't recognize the often-astonishing level of craft on display in these films, then you're watching them with your eyes closed. ---

Not much happens in the first hour, and some critics have hailed it for its character development and sensitivity towards the three young people that horror is inflicted upon. But I didn’t get much of that at all. I found them underdeveloped, and just because they get a lot of screen time wandering around doing nothing doesn’t mean we gain any insight into their hearts and souls before they get killed off. One would think when the killer shows up, the movie would kick into gear, but their variation on Crocodile Dundee felt as much a stock villain as, say, “Uncle Sam” in the Larry Cohen film, or the Leprechaun, or the Wishmaster. He’s just another one-dimensional psycho with a colorful affectation, though I admit he’s very well acted by John Jarrett.

”Wolf Creek” made more of an impression than the article implies, and judging from the diverse responses I got from many a non-horror fan, it crossed over into the mainstream. It played at multiplexes. It got people talking about the “head on a stick” moment. And I suspect more than one cineaste saw it because of Roger Ebert’s zero stars review (which, I confess, is a bit harsh; the film’s worst crime is being mediocre and derivative, not offensive). The cruelty in the film seemed to affect people because they identified with the three kids in a way that I did not, which felt like the filmmaker’s intention. I agree with Kelly that it is not cruelty for its own sake.

Neither is “Hostel”, a film I much preferred. Unlike the bland ciphers of “Wolf Creek”, the heroes of “Hostel” are colorful and vivid Frat Boy assholes. I found them completely loathsome. But when the horror kicks into gear, I realized I didn’t loathe them THAT much. I found Eli Roth’s way of playing with audience response to the characters more compelling in that way than Greg McLean’s. Kelly is right that “Hostel” was definitely not under the radar. It was a box office smash, and within a day or two after its release “Hostel 2” was announced.

He is also right that most critics turned up their noses at “Hostel”, but Eli Roth has a contingent of fans and critics that respond to his movie the same way they do to “South Park”. I don’t think Roth needs to worry about being taken seriously, because he has his fair share of partisans. McLean even more so.

The precedent for horror as popular success story, and gore film as popular success story, actually happened before “Wolf Creek” and “Hostel”. It happened with “Saw”, which paved the way for these other films, not to mention “The Hills Have Eyes” remake.

---Needless to say, neither of these films (both of which are currently still in theaters) will be in the running for next year's Best Picture Oscar.---

True, but then again neither was Boris Karloff or James Whale for “Frankenstein” and “Bride of Frankenstein”, Tod Browning for “Freaks”, or Roman Polanski for “Rosemary’s Baby”.

--- What has emerged, instead, is a modern strain of horror that takes us straight back to the politically conscious, deeply despairing 1970s classics like The Last House on the Left, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, and the original Hills Have Eyes. ---

I’ve heard some critics take a political read on “Hostel”, but I’m unconvinced Roth really makes a cogent political statement in the film. It’s pretty much an equal opportunity offender, I suppose, since the Americans don’t come off any better than the Europeans. As for the “Hills Have Eyes” remake, I thought that their interpretation of the American family was pretty cliché. They’re dysfunctional, they pray together, and they have an American flag. But besides that, it says very little in terms of allegory. I kept hoping they’d try to parallel the “normal” family with the mutant family, but the mutants get so little screen time this never comes across, other than that the “normal” family can go just as hogwild crazy in the bloodletting department. Do you see this film as being politically conscious? If so, I’d be genuinely curious to hear. I found “War of the Worlds” and “Land of the Dead” much more in the realm of political allegory, but of course those films didn’t attempt to hide their politics a bit.
--- What does distinguish these new films from their predecessors, however, is the often jaw-dropping extent of the gore on display: endless cuttings, sawings, dismemberments and disembowelments. (And that's not even mentioning what happens to the poor German Shepard in The Hills Have Eyes.) ---

I applaud these filmmakers pushing the extremism as far as they can, but I think this will exhaust itself pretty soon. Soon, it will be extremism for its own sake (and in some cases, arguably, it is). I’d actually be interested in seeing horror take a radical shift into subtlety. I’d like to see them throw back to “Don’t Look Now”, the Lewton films, the original “Haunting”, “Rosemary’s Baby”, etc. Gore is effective when used for a specific purpose (a la Romero’s original “Dawn of the Dead”, inuring us to the violence so we could get on with the story; revealing the powerful threat of the monster in my favorite, “The Thing”). I want to see if the genre can back-pedal a little and get more into emotional horror, psyche-driven horror, and psychodrama. The marital breakdown in Andrzej Zulawski’s “Possession” leads to horror far more disarming and disturbing than the actual monster in that film, and it remains a potent horror show. The character arc of Rock Hudson in “Seconds” takes him to a harrowing place, and there’s barely any gore but the climax will haunt me for the rest of my life. I’d welcome more horror that goes in that direction, since I think it’s harder to do than slicing open someone’s heel or showing a face get bashed in. I also think that would tap into the powerless feeling Americans have in the face of their corrupt government, and their fear of an uncertain future where the enemy’s face isn’t quite so clear.

For all that, I applaud Kelly’s provocative and thoughtful essay. Teenagers do get these movies, but here’s one response I got from a good friend who is a teen. We saw FINAL DESTINATION, and he said, “Man, real life is so boring. I wish we could cheat death ALL THE TIME.” It says to me that teens want thrills, and plenty of them, and look at these horror films as extreme sports in a way. They provoke a gut reaction. But do they affect our minds as well as our guts? Let's discuss...

Jeremiah

I should add that "Possession" and "Seconds" were box office flops, so maybe I'm out of touch. But I do think it would be good form for the genre to steer in this direction. We'll see.

Jeremiah

And furthermore I was wrong about Polanski -- he got a Screenplay nom for "Rosemary's Baby"...

That was an intriguing article. Personally, I haven't really seen any of the recent splatter horror films; perhaps this may sound pretentious, but I think I outgrew gore films years ago. (It's not that I'm one of these people that look down at horror; I like to think I recognize the value of good horror films.) But Christopher Kelly makes a fascinating case for recent films like Wolf Creek and Hostel as films that actually accomplish something good older horror films used to do: touch upon real human and topical fears and work through them. I guess my only question to Mr. Kelly is: is it really art these movies have, or are they merely engaging in a base form of exploitation? I don't know about other people, but to me, there's a fine line between making a sympathetic portrait of people trapped in a foreign country and simply crassly exploiting it (however technically skilled one may be at presenting such exploitation) for, perhaps, monetary gain?

And I suppose I could try to look at Kelly's article from Armond White's perspective: do these horror films have any worth other than reinforcing (smart-ass, he would probably say) nihilism?

Just questions I thought I'd throw out there. Still an interesting piece, though, one that may actually convince me to check some of these gorefests when they arrive on DVD...

Jeremiah writes, "I’d actually be interested in seeing horror take a radical shift into subtlety. I’d like to see them throw back to “Don’t Look Now”, the Lewton films, the original “Haunting”, “Rosemary’s Baby”, etc."

I second that emotion. The truly psychological film is in short supply these days, at least at the Hollywood level. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that the psychological/spiritual element is what truly makes horror HORROR, as opposed to terror. From my perspective, terror films are about threats to the body, horror is about threats to one's identity -- one's psyche or soul. By that yardstick, should you choose to accept it, how many of these New Splatter flicks are horror in the first place?

I'm somewhat at a disadvantage here, having seen only one of the recent flicks discussed by Chris, "Hostel." So I'm hoping other readers can jump into the fray with evidence that backs or counters Chris' reading of these movies. You folks drive, I'll steer as needed.

Kenji says, "I guess my only question to Mr. Kelly is: is it really art these movies have, or are they merely engaging in a base form of exploitation?"

When the genre is gore, what are the criteria for telling one from the other?

Just asking. I don't know, either.

Well I'm quite happy to see a defense of Wolf Creek after its inexplicable critical drubbing. The ending, in particular, reminded me of the media downfall montage in De Palma's Snake Eyes and I appreciated how the "villain" of the piece throws pop-cultural detritus (e.g.: Crocodile Dundee) back at his "victims" rather than wear it as a snarky badge of honor. There's also a cosmic undercurrent running through the film in the form of the desolate Australian landscape, the vast meteor crater, the climactic eclipse that signals the turn of the tide.

The message, it seems to me, is that sometimes the world and its various spirits are just gonna fucking kill ya, no reasons given. Not exactly optimistic, but not cynical either - more primal, and I'd say it avoids cynicism because of how the kids are portrayed. They're obnoxious in a way, but there's an undeniable sweetness to how they approach each other, especially the tender way in which the guy and the girl hook up - it's not in any way about objectification; they both seem like they're in control and that feeds into the nightmarish latter half of the film where, I think, every choice made by the characters under this tremendously stressful situation is rational.

I'd guess people like Ebert want their horror movies to have a distinct barrier between the reel and the real. Wolf Creek and the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre (which R.E. also panned) tend to bleed (no pun intended, particularly) off the screen, though honestly I've seen tampon commercials more explicitly bloody than Wolf Creek. :-)

Haven't seen Hostel or FD3 and don't really have the desire to, though I do object to the characterization of Silence of the Lambs as redemptive and transcendent. There's no transcendence in the clumsy way Clarice kills Buffalo Bill or redemption in the way Lecter and Clarice both willingly go back in the closet. I've come to view the film as infinitely more progressive for gays than Demme's sanctimonious follow-up Philadelphia and that stems from my view that every lead character in Silence is queer - Clarice toes the party line, Lecter is the joyously removed misanthrope, and Buffalo Bill is the seething undercurrent ready to explode. When Clarice kills Bill (haw haw) I think a little bit of his revolutionary spirit goes into Lecter and Starling both - he becomes, in effect, the holy ghost to the androg father (Lecter is so Truman Capote in that last scene) and the butch "son", both of whom go on to fight the good fight via subterfuge and subversiveness even though they're on opposite ends of a particular spectrum.

Keith, that's an interesting take on Shhhh! Baaaa!. I once wrote a paper for my horror film class (the only film class I ever took) wherein I pointed out how numerous horror movies are really statements about the fear of being gay. I wrote the piece because my teacher was incredibly homophobic, and I wanted to mess with his head. I got an A, but I know the paper scared the hell out of him. It says so right under the A.

I was raised on horror movies. My parents love scary movies, and so do I. The first movie I ever saw was The Exorcist, which didn't scare me until I was old enough to understand the subject matter. Now you can't get me to watch it. I kept my eyes open on 42nd Street at every grindhouse movie I got to see in the 70's, and my eyes remained open during every slash and chop of the 80's.

Mr. Kelly's article was very interesting, but I can't say I agree with his assessment of the current crop of horror movies out there. There are a few that surprised me by being entertaining (the Dawn of the Dead remake was better than I anticipated), but for the most part, every horror movie of late is the SAME movie. Let's up the gore and brutality, and pretend it means more than it does.

I did not find any character development of substance in Wolf Creek, and it showed me nothing I had not seen before--and better. I was in complete apathy the entire time (and by myself--I was the ONLY patron at the screening). The guys in Hostel were so hateful, obnoxious and repulsive that I couldn't wait for them to get theirs. (I had the same problem at Roth's Cabin Fever, but I liked that more than Hostel.)

I remember how terrified I was at the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and how disgusted I was with the insipid remake. My nose is obviously not turned up at horror, because I keep going to these movies when they come out. Either I'm a masochist or a fan, and these movies are making me feel the former.

The directors working today are mimicking the 70's horror, but nobody yet has been able to capture it. I don't sense nor feel the undercurrent of anger that characterized low-budget 70's cinema at recent movies. Guys like Craven and Romero didn't expect their movies to make gazillions, yet I bet every director nowadays has that in mind. The "social commentary" is fake and half-hearted, and the movies are either just too slick today, or they are basically copies like The Devil's Rejects. That was a missed opportunity if ever there were one.

Even though I like it, gore doesn't scare me. I'm more scared by what I can't see, or what I have to imagine (the spine thing in Wolf Creek was a step in that direction). I've seen movies that were scary because they played on my fears (like being buried alive, for example) or lay a sticky foundation of paranoia and plant you feet first in it. I'm not scared of some guy with a hockey mask or some jackass who thinks he's Crocodile Dundee. He wouldn't last five minutes in Mr. Odie's Neighborhood. Now, a pissed off ghost--or The Thing--is a different story.

Teenagers aren't scared at these gore movies any more than I was at The Prowler, The Burning, The Plumber, The Devil's Garbage Man and every other movie named after a holiday or profession that came out during my adolescence. I went to see people get hacked up, and so do these kids.

Horror was never meant to be respectable. It was meant to be a thumb in the eye, to be alternative, to say "fuck you" to the norm. So it makes me want to vomit more than a Lucio Fulci movie when I hear directors on TV telling me how their gorefest has "something to say about America blah blah blah." HORSESHIT, say I. Your movie caters to the basest instinct of people, gets guys to second base with their girlfriends, and can be made for virtually nothing yet gross big bucks, even if they look like shit and you can't direct. BE PROUD OF THAT. Stop trying to earn respect and gravitas. If I want to see a "respectable" scary movie that makes me puke, I'll watch Match Point.

Keith,

"Your" view that the Silence of the Lambs leads are queer was articulated by Armond White over a decade ago in his landmark piece "Deconstruction or Sympathy." White went on to say that the "subterfuge and subversion" represented by the characters' submerged Difference was proof of the film's dishonesty. But no matter: I'm off to fight the good fight just like Buffalo Bill by kidnapping a coed and torturing her in a well in my basement. Viva subversion!

Matt and Christopher, first and foremost, thanks for agreeing to this debate. This is a topic that's been on my mind quite a bit.

I'm a passionate fan of horror; that's what my blog is dedicated to. More specifically, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, the movie most often cited as the forerunner for the current brutal-horror cycle, is one of my favorite films of any kind (as is Deliverance, a less frequently referenced but equally obvious ancestor to Hostel et al). And yet, my (admittedly uninformed--I haven't seen these movies) reaction to the movies Christopher speaks about in his piece is distrust and disappointment. I'll leave the aesthetics aside: clips and critiques can't really paint enough of a portrait to go on, though I will say that Christopher's is the first defense of these movies on (partially) aesthetic grounds that I've seen, and I've seen many defenses of these movies. No, what bothers me is the glib and, I'd wager, extremely shallow political/allegorical reading the films' creators and their supporters use to gussy up the exploitation. Hey, I've seen The American Nightmare too; I liked it, and I like nearly all the movies it talks about. But there's something very distasteful to me about horrific art that enables its viewers to sit comfortably and say "well, that's awful, but at least I know who the awful guys are supposed to represent, and it's not me--it's the people whose politics I disagree with!" First of all, this indicates that the people involved have an extremely limited radar screen when it comes to brutality being used as a political tool. After all, that is pretty much the status quo in most of the world and has been since the dawn of time, and yet only now, snugly ensconced in the comfort of Daily Show jokes about Abu Ghraib and NSA wiretapping and broken levees, do these brave filmmakers step up and say "hey, this isn't good!" But mostly, it's an enormous dodge to implicate select groups of people and not yourself; it's a bigger dodge--an act of cleverly disguised narcissism, in fact--to act as though there's something uniquely horrifying about YOUR culture, YOUR era, YOUR people. Real horror, great horror, stems from the realization that ALL people are horrifying, and horrible. Anything less strikes me as a cop-out, and it's just such a cop-out that appears to be at the core of all these films.

I suppose you didn't expect an attack on these movies on the grounds that they're not pessimistic ENOUGH, did you? :) Well, what can I say. Depicting physical brutality without really undergoing the mental brutality you need to justify it just turns me off.

Thanks once again, gentlemen!

Sean Collins

One final thought: Sometimes a mutilated German Shepherd is just a mutilated German Shepherd.

I'm just so glad that this is an actual discussion, instead of the standard reaction that the article has gotten at other blogs/sites, basically "Look at this loser who thinks horror movies have substance, hyuk hyuk hyuk!"

I think I agree with everything Odienator said, although I still love The Devil's Rejects - I prefer the term 'homage' to 'copy'. I particularly agree that Wolf Creek is overrated. Its' supporters seem to think it's the second coming of Picnic at Hanging Rock, and I just don't think the movie supports that notion.

Nobody else seems to have gotten into the Final Destination series, so I'll take that on. Its value as a series became clearer with the most recent one, because it set in relief the contributions made by James Wong and Glen Morgan in movies #1 and 3 that were not present in #2. All three movies are Rube Goldberg contraptions designed to kill teenagers in ingenious, suspenseful and shocking ways, but Morgan and Wong's contribution has been to provide context and meaning. It's a slasher franchise where there is no slasher except for God himself, euphemised as 'Death'. The teens in these movies are trying to understand the unpredictability of the universe, to make meaning out of meaninglessness, and ultimately, inevitably, learn that there's no escape (#3 is especially bleak and unforgiving) - Sartre or Camus for teens. Plus tits.

First, let me second Jeff’s thanks to Matt for hosting this discussion, as well as reiterate to Mr. Kelly (who I emailed recently) what a thoughtful, insightful job he did with his article.

But enough ass-kissing – onto the topic at hand. Though I admit to being a die-hard fan of the genre, as well as someone who loved both Wolf Creek and The Devil’s Rejects (both films proudly appear on my 2005 top ten list), the majority of horror films these days, while perhaps more gruesome than their predecessors, probably don’t come close to achieving greatness. It’s true that, as Mr. Kelly notes, Hostel and The Hills Have Eyes are well-made and attempt some (meager) form of socio-political commentary. But it strikes me that the problem with so much current horror isn’t its good/bad production values, extreme sadism, or stabs at subtextual profundity, but rather that they pretend to present the world as a cruel, vicious place, only to eventually – through either narrative or aesthetic means – comfort the viewer by making it clear that they’re somehow safe from the onscreen carnage. At least in my opinion, horror films are at their best when they provide no reprieve from their vision of the world as a nasty, unforgiving place inhabited by brutish forces out of one’s control. I guess that’s what appeals to me about both Wolf Creek and The Devil’s Rejects, and why I find stuff like Hostel or the (awful) Final Destination series so disappointing. The former two locate terror in the suggestion that we’re not safe, whereas the latter two pretend to do this, but in truth can’t help but coddle their audiences with the reassurance that a magical intercontinental train will arrive to spirit one away from danger, or that one can figure out the rules to Death’s Mouse Trap machinations (via psychic visions, no less) and come out okay at the end.

Nonetheless, I concede that fear is a subjective experience that’s different for everyone, and don’t care to dispute others’ feelings about what is or isn’t scary. So moving on, two topics that have been brought up in preceding comments seem ripe for exploration, those being:

1) Kenji Fujishima asks Mr. Kelly, “Is it really art these movies have, or are they merely engaging in a base form of exploitation?” What exactly is the difference between an exploitative horror film and a non-exploitative one? And is it wrong for a film to prey upon/exploit audiences fears if, by definition, horror films are designed to scare?

2) The difference between psychological “horror” films (like Rosemary’s Baby) and gory “terror” films (like Texas Chainsaw) – is there somehow something more valid about one than the other? Or are they altogether different beasts? Is something like Rosemary’s Baby even a “horror” film by any modern definition? Or is it merely a psychological, supernatural-tinged suspense story akin to modern-day stuff like The Devil’s Advocate or Godsend (to name two admittedly crappy examples)?

Jeff, Matt, I made a rude comment or two about Kelly's thesis/writing/general intelligence over at another site, and I apologize profusely for that. You're right: there's no need to get personal. I guess he got a rise out of me, which is a compliment to his writing. But if he's answering questions good-naturedly, I'd like to know:
1. Where is the proof, verifiable proof and not critical opinion (and I think critic/reporters sometimes mix up the two), that these films are popular because of our post 9/11 mindset? How does he explain that horror films are always in vogue every five-six years, from the '30s onward? Isn't the hallmark of modern mankind that we as a society generally live in fear of unknowable terror? Isn't fear just the modern psychosis and has been forever, and horror movies just find a way to exploit the latest flavor of it?
2. Isn't the 9/11 line just a crutch for the filmmakers to ramp up the excessive gore, then stick an American flag in a dead man's neck and call it a major statement of national impotence or something?
3. What does a simple flag-in-the-neck image or a bunch of yahoo American tourists really say on any deep level about American fears and the image of America overseas? Is any little visual signifier supposed to be seen as having broader, deeper significance? Is there any real sense that these movies engage our current mindset as the '70s political paranoia films did within the context of thriller entertainment?
4. How much gore is too much gore? Aren't the horror films that really last the ones that have more to say or present the horror in a more clever, cerebral way, and today's films will suffer because filmmakers are just trying to figure out who can film an eyeball being wrenched from its socket with a pair of pliers in the most arty, hip way? Hitchcock didn't need to really show anything to be remembered forever.
5. Basically, are these new films just unrelenting gorefests/torture porns looking for a little respectability and Kelly obliged?

Beyond that, I agree and disagree with Jeff on the Final Destination films. I thought they were done cleverly, and therefore I didn't mind the ickier aspects. But I failed to see any deep thoughts on "trying to understand the unpredictability of the universe." Aren't the kids just trying to stay alive? Isn't that enough? I think it actually says more about us as an audience of "cinephiles" that we feel the need to attach deeper meaning to these things. It makes our habits a little more respectable. I'm with Sean: Sometimes a mutilated German shepherd is just a mutilated German shepherd.

Anyway, I'm looking forward to Kelly's thoughts, and I think it speaks well of him to participate, despite some unkind, unwarranted comments from the likes of, well, me.

Sean says, "Sometimes, a mutilated German Shepherd is just a mutilated German Shepherd."

We're early in this discussion, but we already seem to be spiraling around the same points, the same questions, maybe unanswerable. And that is, when is graphic, even purposefully sadistic violence acceptable, much less artistic? Why is it not OK for a commercial horror filmmaker to, say, stick a flag in someone's neck, yet is is OK for Sam Peckinpah to show Susan George in STRAW DOGS getting raped and liking it (giving us a good look at her breasts while it happens) and cap the movie with a bear trap gag that's like Tex Avery meets Grand Guignol? Why is I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE reviled as a snuff film, yet the scene in the TV series TWIN PEAKS depicting the murder of Laura Palmer's cousin can go on for several agonizing minutes, and be deliberately funny on top of it, and be considered defensible pop art?

Like Kelly, I am framing this material in a hyperbolic way to get a rise out of people, but you see what I'm getting at. Pornographic violence is just pornographic violence, except when an artist employs it, in which case it's to be defended, even celebrated, rather than decried. Is it a gut check thing, a simple case of "I know it when I see it?" Or can we quantify the judgment call in some way, maybe get at a set of criteria that helps us identify defensible ultraviolence from the indefensible kind?

Just asking.

Also:

Nick Schager asks, "Is something like Rosemary’s Baby even a “horror” film by any modern definition?" Nick, by "modern" do you mean, by the standards of HOSTEL or WOLF CREEK? Because i consider most slasher/stalker movies to be terror films, not horror films, because the primary threat is physical rather than psychological/spiritual. What makes ROSEMARY'S BABY a great horror film, as opposed to simply a suspense picture or "terror" movie, is Rosemary's fear of psychological or spiritual violation, which is as palpable as, and arguably more important to Polanski than, her fear of physical violation by rape and/or pregnancy and/or birth. Maybe that's one way into this issue, I don't know.

Sorry, I'm not really buying his socio-political take on our current era of torture-porn in horror films, and I think the more likely reason behind it is America's finally caught up with the rest of the world in this department. Specifically Korea and Japan where filmmakers like Takashi Miike were giving us eye-balls pierced with long needles (accompanied by loud squishing noises naturally) and mutilated sex slaves forced to lick up vomit (and I'm not even getting into the shit in Visitor Q) long before the Towers went down or Iraq the sequel began. It was only inevitable we'd get around to co-opting these films just as we did their cousin the J-Horror film. Incidentally it just dawned on me today that the old, clichéd "hero receives a superficial gunshot wound to the shoulder" has been replaced with "hero has fingers snipped off" (see: Hills Have Eyes, Hostel, House of Wax, even Kiss Kiss Bang Bang and the season finale of "Nip/Tuck").

Odd that the article would heap praise on the truly lithesome Wolf Creek, which clings to its "based on a true story" tagline as if that excused the complete lack of character development, engaging story or three act structure ("see, that's just the way it happened!") while totally ignoring a film that operates on much the same level but is actually legitimately well-made (or at least well-made until it becomes completely retarded) and that film's Aja's High Tension. All of the "Hitchcockian" set pieces that he loved about Wolf Creek, but with a knowing sense of genre constantly grounding the fantastic (and fantastically violent) in real life. Falls off the rails big time in the closing minutes, but I was convinced I was watching a masterpiece for the first hour.

Matt,

I guess by "modern," I was referring to the fact that the term "horror film" has, over the past 20-30 years, slowly become somewhat synonymous with the "slasher film/monster movie/exploitation film." And as a result, Rosemary's Baby now strikes me as something different from what we currently classify as "horror."

Without getting too hung up on symantics, let me say that I agree that Polanski's film is more concerned with psychological, rather than physical, horror. It just seems kinda incorrect to be comparing something like a Rosemary's Baby to a Hostel in the first place, since regardless of whether they're both classified as horror films, they seem to be after considerably different things.

I think you hit the nail on the head with your second-to-last post, since the main point of contention around here seems to be: when is violence acceptable (and artistic), and when is it just gratuitous (and repugnant)? Whether there's a simple answer to that question which everyone can agree upon seems, at least to me, unlikely. But it'd be interesting to hear what others think...

I haven't seen most or any of the mentioned gore pics, but I have been seen a fair amount of stuff from Japan. Anyone think Pulse, Ringu, Audition, Battle Royale, Ju-on, etc were of some influence?

And more to this discussion, it seems the critical reception of the Japanese horror pics seem better than the American counter parts.

Matt, yeah, it probably comes down to taste. It also probably comes down to some notion of whether you think there's art involved. Lynch seems to get more of a pass because his movies presumably have something going on, even if you can't quite figure what it is. (The Peckinpah film, repulsive as it is, really isn't a horror film.) Maybe we need to see if these new horror tyros do anything with their filmmaking ability beyond the genre. They don't necessarily have to, but a great filmmaker can probably do more than just gross you out. Can we agree on that? Can you think of any hard-core horror directors who went on to make great mainstream or art films? I don't think Wes Craven counts, but some might. Where does a DePalma fit in all of this? Is being drilled through the floor in BODY DOUBLE or poor Angie being hacked up in DRESSED TO KILL get a pass as art because of its Hitchcockian-sex sheen and big stars? What about Tarantino and the ear? Does it come down to this: Must we be so grossed out to be scared? Is it a lesser art to be intensely graphic instead of implying it a bit? And, in a weird way, isn't part of the going to a horror movie experience supposed to have an element of communal fun to it? All of us being freaked out in the dark together? Aren't these new movies more like being chained in a torture dungeon and having the filmmakers flailing all our skin off, and going all medieval on us? Isn't there some quantifiable difference there? And, sort of off topic but maybe not, is watching CSI on TV any different from some of these movies? Hell, I'm getting more confused. Maybe you and Kelly can figure all this out. I still don't think it's got anything to do with 9/11, though.

THR-HB says, "Where does a DePalma fit in all of this? Is being drilled through the floor in BODY DOUBLE or poor Angie being hacked up in DRESSED TO KILL get a pass as art because of its Hitchcockian-sex sheen and big stars? What about Tarantino and the ear?" I'm not sure where either of them fit into the horror/terror or art/exploitation continuum, except to say they obviously borrow liberally from both traditions. However, it's worth pointing out that both De Palma in the drill scene of BODY DOUBLE and Tarantino in the ear slicing scene of RESERVOIR DOGS don't actually show you much of the actual act. It's mostly reactions and tight inserts and a flurry of cuts that make you think you're seeing more than you actually are seeing. In RESERVOIR DOGS, the camera actually makes a point of moving away to as not to show you the actual ear-slicing (though he shows you the ear afterward). Which isn't to say De Palma and Tarantino aren't phenomenally violent directors with both street cred and artistic cred, but that they often make you think you saw more than you saw.

You're right that it's a mistake to think of this era as some kind of anomalous torture-murder period. A lot of thos 70s movies that we now think of as more authentic/sincere (TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE, THE HILLS HAVE EYES, etc) were considered disreputable and even toxic in their day. Is this discussion not somehow reminiscent of the discussions of pop music that take place over generations in households around the world? By which I mean, the Rolling Stones and The Doors are considered sexy/scary/subversive, but with the passage of time, they become car commercial or nostalgia radio soundtracks, while a new generation of parents frets over hip-hop?

Sorry, that second paragraph above should have been addressed to Andrew Dignan.

Also Virgil X raises an excellent point about foreign filmmakers (even splatter/horror specialists) being granted more leeway than US filmmakers. Funny you should bring this up. I am currently writing a review of the Russian movie "4" which seems to be getting a respectful if not entirely rapturous reception in the US. In its swaggeringly auteurist style -- which includes super-long takes, all manner of fun camera tricks, copious and at times clearly gratuitous nudity and plentiful up close scenes of people eating in a really nasty "animalistic" way (a la a Sergio Leone movie) -- it's definitely the product of a brilliant young filmmaker getting his intellectual and aesthetic rocks off. But there's substance there, a real vision, however unwieldy. I liked it a lot. But watching it, I did find myself thinking, "If an American director made a film like this, wouldn't he/she be blasted as pretentious?" In terms of critical receptiveness, it seems to me that in the American movie marketplace, if you're going to take major risks with form and/or content, it definitely helps to be from another country.

Nick Schager, you said:
I guess by "modern," I was referring to the fact that the term "horror film" has, over the past 20-30 years, slowly become somewhat synonymous with the "slasher film/monster movie/exploitation film." And as a result, Rosemary's Baby now strikes me as something different from what we currently classify as "horror."

Without getting too hung up on symantics, let me say that I agree that Polanski's film is more concerned with psychological, rather than physical, horror. It just seems kinda incorrect to be comparing something like a Rosemary's Baby to a Hostel in the first place, since regardless of whether they're both classified as horror films, they seem to be after considerably different things.

Obviously, what these films have in common is that they evoke fear in the viewer. There are many ways in which a filmmaker can choose to evoke fear, and they're all legitimate in their own right. In my essay Building a Better Bomb: The Alternatives to Suspense, I've tried to map-out the Dread Palette, an umbrella term I made up for different ways of building tension. Suspense is one of them, but there's also the Hidden Threat (Rosemary's Baby, Lost Highway, The Machinist), the Revelation Response (The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Suspiria, Hellraiser), the Pavlovian Minefield (Halloween, slasher movies), the Cerebral Spiral (Kubrick's The Shining, Safe) and numerous combinations of course (The Thing, Cronenberg).

This modern strain of horror films Christopher Kelly is talking about largely falls into the Revelation Response category--a Clive Barker coinage for the kind of frontal-attack that forces audiences to confront and embrace their fears. But it uses it with a rollercoaster-ride, Pavlovian Minefield mentality. Although the impact of these movies can be profound, the primary intention - and this is where it differs from Polanski's horror - is to entertain. Wether they succeed at this is a subjective matter, but I do believe these films tell us something about the world we're living in.

Jeez, what a lot to comment on.

First of all, in response to Nick Schager, while I agree in general with his desire for horror films that don't 'cheat' their audiences with false happy endings, I also don't think that nihilism is a necessary attribute of the genre...just honesty. Because after a while, bleak endings can be as false and trendy as happy ones. And it's the way these conclusions are modulated that is of primary importance. One of the key differences between Craven's original Hills Have Eyes and Aja's remake is that in the original, you felt violated and traumatized by what had happened to the characters; in the remake, you feel violated and traumatized, but also you got a satisfying cathartic release. Aja allows you to enjoy taking revenge against the atomic mutants in a way that Craven, in all his craftless early-career honesty, never would, which is why his film is a minor classic and Aja's is an entertaining trifle.

And on the subject of Final Destination 3: the movie gives its characters the appearance of an exit, only to pull the rug out from under them in its conclusion, which is in keeping with the themes it sets up. If you think the ending of the first movie was dishonest, check out the original ending that appears on the DVD. It's clumsy and doesn't really work, but it aspires to a level of art and a transcendent vision of humanity that you rarely see in American films - and it's heartfelt.

Okay, maybe more later.

I lack the chops to articulate this, but I think what Kelly's on to here is a generational shift, but one less about the movies themselves but rather their context. Perhaps an example.

When I was a kid seeking out nasty kicks, the first thing that could get me squirming in my seat was the right studio logo. I didn't know from "majors" or "independents" and had never heard of the genius of the system, but I'd seen that lion roar in front of sappy musicals and the spinning globe herald some stodgy action films. You knew already they signified a certain respectability, a safety zone. Things could be fairly gross along the way, and even end badly, but the camera work was reassuringly professional and hey, wasn’t that actor who got gruesomely chopped up or eaten by giant leeches in some old black & white thing they show on TV every summer? Harmless, really.

But those heretofore unseen initials, with their too thick fonts and too garish by half colors, moving in cheap, underanimated staccato chops across a tacky star field while some primitive theme churned out from a poorly mic’ed synthesizer, those unnerved you from the get-go. UFDC, AIP, Bryanston; christ, if the company’s own representation could seem so shoddy and disreputable, who knew what the movie itself would deliver?

Speaking for myself, part of my resistance to much of the new cycle of horror films stems from nostalgia for those disreputable days. Sure, it’s unfair to filmmakers who get to prove their chops with big-budget support; more problematically, any film studies snob who’s halfway digested Robin Wood could tsk-tsk for days on the clear antipathy towards marginalized cultures and fear of The Other. Then again, why shouldn’t the most unnerving movies slither out from someplace foreign, with no familiar signposts to guide you home? If one of it’s cookie-cutter stars gets to show a clip and rattle off anecdotes on the filming to Conan O’Brien, or Roger Ebert even notices the thing, how disturbing can it really be?

If I can be allowed an analogy as brazenly antisocial as the best horror films, it’s the difference between the guilty, heart-pounding but undeniably erotic tremble you get when walking past a pair of hookers working the corner and the vaguely disappointed detumescence that follows once the attractive lady across the bar is identified to you as a high-priced whore.


Some of this has bearing on Matt’s and Virgil X’s comments about foreign films; their not-quite-right portrait of the most familiar sights—streetlamps, money, TV shows—robs them of their comforting reassurance. Count me as one who prefers Aja’s High Tension in the dubbed version as opposed to the subtitled French. It’s weirder, stranger, and threateningly out of your control.

Good point, mystery poster. It gets to another problem with modern genre filmmaking, which is the lack of true independent production/distribution companies operating anymore, thanks to media consolidation and so on. You can still find some weird stuff in the direct-to-video world, but it's hard to come by. And who really feels like they're being subversive when they rent a DVD at Blockbuster?

Thought provoking article. I haven't seen any of the new generation of horror films mentioned although I did see the French, unedited High Tension. As a second-generation filmmaker, it will be interesting to see how Aja's career developes.
In reference to 9/11, I re-saw Dario Argento's Tenebre soon after that event and found the film oddly cathartic. In that film, seemingly random horror took place out in the open, in bright sunlight.

In Kelly's article, he quotes Eli Roth saying, "'Open Water,' 'Wolf Creek,' 'The Devil's Rejects' -- these are movies made outside of the studio system, that don't have a happy ending. [The studios and critics] forget that that's what people are paying for -- to be terrified and disturbed." That's an interesting point in light of the other subject being batted around here: namely, if it's funded by/distributed by a big entertainment company, if there are ads on TV, if one of the stars appears on a network talk show to promote the film, if you can rent it at Blockbuster, how subversive can it be?

I'm uncomfortable with that whole line of thinking, because for me it veers toward the idea that "real" pop art can't be made in the mainstream (Spielberg, Spike Lee and Jonathan Demme readily disprove that, whether you like their movies or not). And it also reminds me a bit too much of the sorts of arguments I used to have about local music, where some longtime fan of a particular band would pronounce them sellouts if they got a record contract and start patronizing a new band that hadn't been discovered yet.

Fact is, there's smart and shallow stuff being made at all levels of the business, and I think it must be judged on a movie-by-movie (or director-by-director) basis. I'm afraid that when we go down the other road -- worrying that a movie's automatically compromised if it's available to a very wide audience -- then we're unwittingly endorsing the idea that the phrase "popular art" is an oxymoron.

Writing about "Slither" in The Times, Manola Dargis said, " Real horror demands more than a romp in a charnel house; it requires dread, mystery, awe." These recent films seem to nail the dread aspect, but once that's accomplished, choose to disregard those other two qualities and jump right to gore. When someone presents something like a dread-soaked "Repulsion", I'll be right there.

I'll also agree with Armond white in that, bad as things may seem in this sad world at the moment, I think to posit nilhilism as the only response is not based on any reasoned consideration or thoughtful worldview, it's only a cynical pose for what White calls, "The hipeoisie".

Actually, let me amend that last bit. It may be that these high-schoolers and college kids don't give a fig about some filmmaker's pose, they're wanting only to get down with the brutality, with the shock (but no awe), with the exploitation, the frisson of these debased spectacles. This audience probably finds the cold calculus of a Haneke or Cronenebrg (recent Cronenberg, anyway) to humdrum.

Speaking of "Repulsion," a restored print plays New York's Film Forum April 21. The link is here.

And while I agree that nihilism is not a defensible or useful response to the world's unpleasantness, I stopped using any variation of the word "hip" or "hipster" after the ReverseShot boys rightly pointed out that it's a phony straw man designation, one that doesn't mean anything except "people I disagree with." Using it cheapens otherwise valid arguments.

Also, regarding KJ's point about some young viewers "...wanting only to get down with the brutality, with the shock (but no awe), with the exploitation, the frisson of these debased spectacles." You're right on the money. Twenty years ago, i successfully lured a lot of my fellow high school students to see BLUE VELVET by promising the same qualities. I don't know how many of them went on to watch any other Lynch movie, but at least it meant David Lynch got their money, or some of it. My point, though, is that when young viewers seek out transgressive/violent/explicitly sexual/shock-worthy material to test themselves against it, or just to experience some kind of thrill ride/catharsis, it's not evidence that they're bad or dumb people, just that they're looking for excitement and are willing to take it wherever they can find it. This connects with my earlier point, above -- that we should be careful in characterizing an audience's motivation for attending edgy or shocking movies, because not only could we be wrong in our assumptions, we end up turning moviegoing into a cool kids club; in other words, we become a different kind of "hipster."

And by "excitement," above, I don't just mean a visceral thrill, I mean the excitement of experiencing something new.

Hi everyone. (And thanks Matt for asking me to participate.) These comments have been really interesting, and I'm not sure I have many answers to the questions posed.

But a little back story on the piece that some people might find illuminating. I'd been ignoring most of the recent horror movies, passing them on to other critics at the paper; it's not a genre that usually interests me, and the few that I did see (Cabin Fever, the first Saw), I felt indifferent toward.

But I caught Wolf Creek on New Year's Day, just on lark, and I was blown away. From a technical standpoint, I think the opening thirty minutes -- that slow, slow burn, where we keep waiting and waiting for the characters' perfectly blissful lives to fall to pieces -- are close to perfect in terms of building suspense. (I think it's also exceptionally well-cast, something even the favorable reviews failed to take note of.)

After Wolf Creek, I started catching up on some of these other horror movies that I'd been missing; and I began wondering if the box office success of these movies with teenagers spoke to a larger cultural/generational shift: i.e., Has the nihilistic Fight Club/Jackass generation now turned into a generation of complete fatalists?

If the piece doesn't entirely answer that question, well, I'm not sure it can be answered, not without the kind of hindsight that's at least a decade away. And if the piece sometimes reads like provocation for provocation sake, well, I am writing for a daily newspaper readership in a fairly conservative city -- i.e., you have to do everything you can to encourage people who wouldn't pay attention to these movies to at least give them a chance.

OK, a couple of answers to questions that were asked here:

Where is the proof, verifiable proof and not critical opinion (and I think critic/reporters sometimes mix up the two), that these films are popular because of our post 9/11 mindset?

Well, I'm not sure there could EVER be such verifiable proof -- short of having one of the characters announce "Daddy, is it the terrorists?" a la War of the Worlds. (A movie I don't mean to pick on, because I like it a lot.) But I hope that doesn't stop us from exploring the metaphorical possibilities, or from acknowledging that filmmakers might have subconscious impulses that are being worked out in these movies.

The other question I wanted to address: "is it really art these movies have, or are they merely engaging in a base form of exploitation?"

Anything as expertly made as Hills Have Eyes (especially the centerpiece where the father is burned at the stake and the trailer is invaded) qualifies as art in my book. Just because it's ruthless, clinical and emotionally detatched doesn't make it pornography -- just ask Stanley Kubrick. I don't know if these movies finally offer anything more than nihilism (and I say as much in the story). I'm not sure Kubrick's movies, most of which I adore, do either. But, as Wes Craven noted to me, you have to give filmmakers the respect to say the things that are on their mind, even if what they have to say is unbearably cynical and depressing.

I'll try to check in again later tonight.

Chris

Matt, I'm of two minds about your "when is violence acceptable" question: on the one hand I want to agree with the director (I've forgotten who--Peckinpah, was it? Hitch?) who commented that audiences don't demand a justification of depictions of love, but they do of violence.

I can see what this director meant (whomever it was) but, at the same time, I do like violence in a film to have some justification. I think my reaction might be just that--reactionary--since it's based on my own displeasure and since I find violence displeasing. Yet I doubt that whatever's running the show is going to stop everything at the end if I state my displeasure at dying. And I think it was Stephen King who said that horror films, when it comes down to it, are just a dress rehearsal for death, a reminder of some eventual oblivion.

Yet I know that horror devotes itself to delivering some frisson, some heightened sense of vulnerability, and there are a number of paths to that destination. Violence is one of them--threats to our self, our body. Of course there are other vulnerabilities, like the social, spiritual, and psychological; so I can't help wondering how much my own biases are entering into the picture. That is, on Maslow's hierarchy, where am I? If I were less physically secure, what would I think about ultraviolent horror films? Would I find them less artificial, more relevant? If I were completely secure in all of my needs, would I find horror films silly, perverse, and pointless?

I'm not sure. I think that maybe ultraviolence can still be transgressive, and horror's turn towards it might be an effort to continue to do what it's assigned itself to do: transgress taboos, shock, challenge, even as society's taboos continue to shift.

Is the requirement for justification not just a narrative one? That is, do we want violence to reveal something mysterious or thought-provoking or previously unknown (in addition to working within a narrative)? Honestly, I think I do--I loved A History of Violence for this; to me the film seemed to challenge some of the action-movie tropes, which use violence as a handy solution and seem to think it has little or no effects on people. I think violence does have noticeable, and typically pernicious, effects on people, but I'm hesitant to insist that horror movies endorse my particular view. I like it when violence is handled with some thoughtfulness that goes beyond resolving plot point B, but in some films I can't help wondering if that's asking a Brussel sprout to be a cabbage.

As for whether horror films should be nihilistic--well, do other films bear that same burden? Isn't Brief Encounter a wonderful romance, in spite of the love being unrequited?

Is it a sign that the horror films are doing what they set out to, that we're having this discussion? That is, if we all watch Rosemary's Baby and then say "that was a good film" and go up and bake a bread or file our taxes or write a postcard and never think of the film again, has it failed as a film?

Dunno if I have answers for the questions Tuwa poses, because they're fundamental, but I do think I can answer this one: "if we all watch Rosemary's Baby and then say "that was a good film" and go up and bake a bread or file our taxes or write a postcard and never think of the film again, has it failed as a film?"

Answer: Yes.

Film columnist David Poland weighs in on Kelly's piece, and pretty much rejects it. But scroll down and read the comments; while not everyone agrees that every one of the "torture porn" movies has political resonance, let alone substance, many of them single out particular titles as entertainment that deserves a serious reading. And scattered among the remarks are several laments for the fact that splatter films are still, by and large, not taken seriously by mainstream critics.

Matt, I share your faith in mainstream art as well as your skepticism for the term "hipsters," especially in combination with the term "nihilism." That tune is old hat. Nihilism was hip a couple of years ago; now it's a thing of the masses. ;-)

So much about criticism is about creating cool kids clubs in order to shut others out. We'd be better off without them, but I guess such a world wouldn't be cool enough.

Dude, that's it, you're out of the club. Everybody else check your email. I'll send you diagrams of the new secret handshake tonight.

Re: the comments about pop art MZS made before, I would never say that there aren't good pop-art horror filmmakers out there - Dante and Romero certainly fit the bill - but rather making the point that the lack of the indie releasing companies that flourished from the 50s through to the 80s made it easier for many of our favorite horror classics to be made - things like Night of the Living Dead, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, etc. Today I don't know where that market is. There are a lot of direct-to-video cheapies in video stores, but they all look depressingly identical.
(One exception: the homoerotic horror films of David DeCoteau - but only because he prefers scantily dressed boys to scantily dressed girls. Otherwise, all the same).

I really haven't seen any of the recent horror movies being discussed in this article. I do have to say that one of the cleverest approaches to "Hostel" had to be an interview with Eli Roth on Twitchfilm.net, where the site's interviewer took on a persona somewhere between the attitude of one of the movie's characters and the "violence is kewl, man" fan that both sides of this discussion want to disavow. http://www.twitchfilm.net/archives/004783.html
The other thing I wonder is how important is audience interpretation. Even if Roth and Aja have a important message behind their films, if most of the audience doesn't get that message or get the opposite, should they not make those films? Conversely, if Roth and Aja have nothing except cheap gimmickry and shock tactics in mind, but the a good portion of the audience gets an interpretation that is constructive, are these films good?
Jacqueline Bobo, in her essay "The Politics of Interpretation: Black Critics, Filmmakers and Audience" (in the book "Black Popular Culture") pointed out that in the film The Color Purple, there was an added scene with Shug reconciling with her father. Critics thought the scene created a negative interpretation of Shug's independence.
But in interviews with black women that had viewed the movie, they said they didn't take see that interpretation of Shug's character at all. So how much do the critic and filmmaker's viewpoints matter and how much does the audience's matter, for better or worse?

Robert K asks: "The other thing I wonder is how important is audience interpretation. Even if Roth and Aja have a important message behind their films, if most of the audience doesn't get that message or get the opposite, should they not make those films? Conversely, if Roth and Aja have nothing except cheap gimmickry and shock tactics in mind, but the a good portion of the audience gets an interpretation that is constructive, are these films good?"

I don't know -- seems to me in either scenario, the artist failed to get across his message or meaning, whatever it was. Which in turn means whatever merit the film possesses comes from audience response rather than artistic intent.

Back to the subject of whether violent films need to make a statement of some sort, or if it's OK for them just to be well made, i.e. effective at manipulating and pleasing an audience: If you view violence as Quentin Tarantino does -- as an element that can be used in a motion picture, no more subject to moral concerns than a musical number -- then a well-made movie is a good movie, no matter what it says or shows.

I feel bit differently about this issue. Sex and violence are the heart of human experience, and I think our decision of how to present and/or interpret them matters a great deal. Bear in mind I am not a neo-Puritan. As my reviews and blog posts indicate, some of my favorite stuff is explicitly sexual or violent. I am never bothered by the savageness or explicitness of violence, only by the context and presentation. A simplistic presentation of violence in an old, restrained action picture is just as likely to set off my alarm bells as a misjudged moment in Peckinpah or Scorsese.

For some strange reason, we circled around to the subject of presentation/context in the "Worst Picture" thread a few days back. The link is here for anyone who's interested.

Sorry! Lost the coding. The link is here.

Kelly's piece and the ensuing discussion have gestured toward politics without actually discussing them much at all. Kelly's piece invokes fears about 9/11 and Iraq, but fails to mention the two political touchstones which correspond best to these celluloid nightmares--- namely the torture cells at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo. Does Kelly omit these issues because by his own admission, he's writing for a conservative paper? Or is it because he sees no connection between the tortures in HOSTEL or THE DEVIL'S REJECTS and the charnel houses of US foreign policy in Iraq and elsewhere? I for one am becoming dispirited by the odd combination of public fascination and national denial which attends our national relationship to torture.

HOSTEL, THE DEVIL'S REJECTS and the SAW films join FOX TV's 24 in exploiting the currency of torture for dubious effect. 24 is probably the most noxious offender, because it places this torture in a specifically political context-- in a narrative of righteous national revenge.

As for HOSTEL, even though Roth talks a good game about real violence vs. reel violence, I don't think there's a shred of political consciousness in his film. This is especially alarming because his subject is a torture theme camp for rich tourists, set in the wild capitalist environs of Slovakia. Watching the film, I was reminded that Slovakia was one of the countries suspected of housing a CIA "black site" for US interrogation. I wonder how many of the teenagers packing the theaters know that the US tortures people in secret prisons. How many of those in the audience will be next year's recruits? Are these valid questions to raise?

But HOSTEL's problem isn't just that it's apolitical. It's that the violence and torture in the film seems to lack any real moral weight.

WOLF CREEK also presents torture as "entertainment" (as do most horror films), but at least I never feel that I'm meant to laugh at the victims or their plight.
Kelly is right about WOLF CREEK-- it is a great film, expertly crafted and seething with existential dread. That being said, WOLF CREEK isn't a political film, but it does encourage us to empathize with the victims and the hopelessness of their situation, which may be a poltical act in these times.

The bottom line seems to be that people are fascinated with torture. It's human nature. I just think that the exploration of such themes in popular culture needs to be informed by political and moral concerns, not tossed in as another ingredient for timely effect.

One last thought: I've always preferred horror films which genuinely disturb, which provoke existential, primal terror. In order to be genuinely scary, a horror film has to violate our sense of order and trouble us morally. This is why I prefer Spielberg's JAWS to his JURASSIC PARK. In the former film, innocent people (including children) die. In the latter, almost all of the victims are people who "deserve it."

Regarding the above line, as pointed out by Jonathan Rosenbaum, those victims are a fat guy, a black guy, and a lawyer. Definitely, Spielberg has progressed since then.

Two last thoughts I wanted to contribute:

I was wondering, as I was writing the piece, if one of Pauline Kael's legacies is that we've all been conditioned to the kind of horror movie that is "acceptable" to praise, say Brian De Palma's Carrie or Philip Kaufman's Invasion of the Body Snatchers. (Kael on Carrie: "Scary-and-funny must be the greatest combination for popular entertainment.") It's almost as if horror movies need to pass a "joyfulness" test before they can be regarded as artistic efforts. I think that to some degree explains the mostly positive critical reactions to Sin City (a movie Ebert gave four stars) or Kill Bill (ditto on the Ebert stars), movies I can barely stomatch, precisely because the technical bravura seems wedded to nothing resembling a political, social or moral point of view. Maybe it does boil down to a matter of taste, a kind of "My gruesome splatterific movie is more thoughtful and ambitious than your gruesome splatterific movie." But I do think a lot of people have a hard time reckoning with humorless horror movies because it makes them feel things horror isn't "supposed" to make them feel. And that's why I thought Eli Roth's last quote in my piece was so trenchant: Maybe people right now aren't necessarily pining for horror they can shake off (Kael again: "we come out of a movie like Carrie ... laughing at our own childishness"). Maybe they just want to be really, really disturbed.

Speaking of Roth, my interview with him touched on a lot of subjects that didn't make it into the final piece. He expressed a lot of frustration with the current state of political affairs, and said that Hostel could be read as a metaphor for the Iraq war: arrogant, entitled Americans go into a foreign country looking to pillage the place of its natural resources, only to find the tables turned against them by an elaborately organized "resistance" (my quotes, not his).

I didn't get much into that reading in the piece, because I didn't think it completely made sense (it implies Roth hates his main characters a lot less than he does, and also that the Iraq war will eventually turn into a silly vegeance fantasy). But it does speak to the real-world concerns of the filmmaker, even if he was just making it up on the spot.

To Robert and Matt's questions about whether or not a political statement counts if the target audience doesn't "get" the message: Aren't those the best kinds of political statements, that come coded and not banging you over the head, and that only reveal their meaning in small measure? Again this is a taste thing -- how much "evidence" do you need before you will accept the plausbility of a metaphorical reading -- but these movies' messages worked for me.

As to the question of Abu Gharib not being referenced in the article, um, that's simply because the idea never occurred to me. I'm not that smart.

Chris

P.S. Can it possibly be coincidence that in the 48 hours since this discussion has begun, two dead possums have turned up in my yard?

Thanks for participating, Chris. And keep an eye on those two dead possums. You never know.

Also, regarding the implication in Roth's statements that "the Iraq war will eventually turn into a silly vegeance fantasy," I have a one-word response:

"Eventually"?

I apologize because I'm making this comment having only browsed all the comments. But I have to say that these movies Kelly defends are simply trash. Dismissing them is not dismissing the horror genre. Splatter is for kids, and not particularly bright kids. The kind who can wring hours of entertainment out of a fart.

Even the genre's high art exemplar, Audition, is ultimately a sadistic bore. To compare this hyperactive crop of Miike and Fukasuku-inspired filmmakers to greats like Hitchcock, Peckinpah and Polanski is almost as tacky as the the films themselves.

I've seen Wolf Creek, the stupid Saws, Hostel and others. The most shocking thing about them is that they've conned superior filmmakers like Tarantino to endorse them.

One exception: High Tension. Aja is a skilled storyteller.

Can you explain what could possibly make High Tension (ugh) an exemplar of the genre?

This is the kind of less-than-useful dismissive scoffing I was talking about before.

I'm sorry I can't speak for some of the latest slasher flicks... But in my experience - having worked for several years in a video rental store - people who admire these sorts of movies tend to express their love in one telling phrase: "f***'in awesome!" Even a pontentially fun movie like Evil Dead that jokes around with the genre was once described to me as "so awesome, a woman gets raped by a tree!" Maybe this is not the deepest interrogation of these films on the part of these viewers, but that the films can be interpretted that way makes me wary of their merit (I go back and forth on Clockwork Orange for this reason). For me, this tends to be how the exploitative violence is interpretted, and in that way it just recuperates the violence of the world as we know it.

I'm not blaming these pictures for social problems, but I have a hard time enjoying pictures with no vision of a world beyond violence. So many films lately try to be smart by shocking the audience , and I think that some times that comes at the expense of subtle films that are just as smart.

jeff:

High Tension, along with the equally maligned Hide and Seek, tells its story with a strong sense of place and subjectivity that harks back to Polanski and, further, to Lewton. HT bears some superficial resemblance to the Saws and Hostels--gore and gimmicks--but if you watch it with the sound turned off, you'll see a sophisticated flow of images that those herky-jerky flicks can't muster. Intelligence and psychological acuity expressed with a lens and a splice.

Its a general deadening trend that goes beyond genre. What do The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, Running Scared, King Kong and The Fog remake all have in common? Numbing, hyperbolic storytelling in which even a baby stomps around like Paul Bunyan. For all the previz and digital precision, I've seen gonzo porn more thoughtfully composed.

I'm glad you mentioned "with the sound turned off". As I said previously, I agree that Aja has a strong sense of craft, but I detect virtually no personal voice in either of his films, and whatever psychological acuity in HT was, in a word, laughable.

On the other hand, I think Running Scared actually displayed a much more sophisticated flow of images, fast-cut and somewhat assaultive as it was (even if the ending was goofy).

For what it's worth, here's Reverse Shot's Jeannette Catsoulis on Wolf Creek:

"I’m not buying any of these mealy-mouthed protestations; I have yet to read a criticism of 'Wolf Creek' that would not accurately describe 80 percent of horror movies. Therefore, I have to ask: Why are so many critics feigning ignorance of the core objectives of an entire genre? Have we become so embarrassed by our dark side—the side that relishes carnage and flayed flesh for its own cathartic sake—that we’re unable to enjoy, however guiltily, an exceptionally well-made movie like 'Wolf Creek?'"

The core objective of horror is to help people get off on images of "carnage and flayed flesh"? Catsoulis should speak for herself. I don't believe in universal "dark sides" (but then I always considered Joseph Conrad a racist windbag).

The great horror films could never be confused with snuff, which is what most of the recent films under discussion more or less are. Wolf Creek's virtues are in the areas that it shows restraint and careful manipulation of POV, not the gore.

Catsoulis's infantile, sheltered-surbanite, Abu Ghraib thinking shows why these flicks are as destructive as they are silly.

Can you explain what "Abu Ghraib thinking" is please?

jeff, I could probably show you better than I can tell you, but I suspect you've already seen the pictures.

Abu Ghraib thinkers suppose that treating another human being like a speed bag or cold cuts is an acceptable form of catharsis. All this torture imagery gives people who have never tasted real violent atrocities a place to release all their sublimated fear, boredom and aggression: on the body of another human being. Put the mall kids who digest a steady diet of this stuff in uniform and give them authority over prisoners--and see what happens. Movies are real, man.

At the risk of derailing a bit, I can't help wondering if the Milgram experiment gives us all the explanation of Abu Ghraib we need. At any rate, since Milgram's work was conducted as an investigation of the typical responses at the Nuremberg trials--"Just following orders"--I hardly think violent movies are to blame for Abu Ghraib, as little as I like them.

As for whether movies are real, well of course they are. And it doesn't make much sense to be able to say that a movie or CD or book changed your life and then to turn around and say that of course screen violence doesn't affect people. It does. The question is, how? And the answer is "in different ways," because people don't just accept everything; they think about it to different degrees and with different backgrounds and core beliefs.

A general narcissistic, cheapening dehumanizing trend in the culture accounts for a huge chunk of why so many Americans are so comfortable with Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo. "Just following orders" is what the Stanford experiment found as a standard justification, yes, but "Look what you made me do" and "You deserve it" are the rationalizations that have become pervasive in the post-911 climate of siege that asshole leaders like Dubya and Mel Gibson exploit, tragically.

Matt, you say:

> I can answer this one: "if we all
> watch Rosemary's Baby and then say
> "that was a good film" and go up and
> bake a bread or file our taxes or
> write a postcard and never think of
> the film again, has it failed as a
> film?"

> Answer: Yes.

I just want to clarify what I think you're getting at:

You can go up and bake a bread or file our taxes or write a postcard, but as long as you do think about the film again, it hasn't failed?

I assume that is what you mean, but if not I would want to argue that this desire for a visceral reaction you can't get away from isn't necessarily the strongest form of the genre. The slow burn of what you would call horror as opposed to terror lets you mull it over while doing your taxes or baking bread, and I think is ultimately more effective.

James: I appreciate your wanting a clarification, and I apologize if my jokey comment was confusing.

All I meant was, whether a movie is a representative of "horror" or "terror" or any other genre, one measure of its success is its ability to sink into our subsconscious and have a life beyond the final credits.

I didn't meant to imply that graphically violent movies make more of an impression me than more psychological horror (actually, the second category tends to impress me more). And I'm certainly not saying that if you think about a movie after seeing it, then it automatically means it's a great movie or even a good movie. It just means that there is something in it that registered beyond the level of, "Well, that was an entertaining night at the movies." And I admit to having a certain respect for movies that stay in my mind for a while, whether I liked them or not.

I do think this principle comes across most strongly when discussing horror films. Obviously every response is unique. I had almost a year of sleepless nights after seeing THE EXORCIST as a kid, but I know other people who saw it around the same age and just thought it was grossout trashy fun. But I do find myself appreciating movies, genre films especially, that linger in my imagination for weeks, months or even years after first viewing. Even if I hated the movie, I appreciate its ability to rattle me and make me examine my premises about what constitutes a good movie or a useful statement on life, death, violence, etc.

IRREVERSIBLE is one such movie; I hated it the first time, saw it again and still hated it, and to this day I feel violated by it and think the director is more a clever, pretentious sadist than a deep-thinking artist. Still, I think about it whenever I see a movie or TV show that depicts revenge or rape, and whenever I walk through the pedestrian underpass of a subway station. I see hundreds of movies and TV shows a year, so when a movie sticks with me this long, particularly a film I truly loathed and have no desire to see again, I have to ask myself if there was something substantive there and perhaps I resisted the movie for deep-seated personal reasons.

I don't know if that's the answer you wanted.

I guess splatter is the topic du jour. David Ansen of Newsweek weighs in.

Matt:

Thanks for the response. I don't think I expressed my appreciation for the jokey-ness of your initial comment enough. There is a strong current - especially amongst horror fans - that the only effective variety is the type that stuns you in your seat and causes you to... I don't reevaluate your life, joing a fight club or something. I always like to poke at that contingent whenever I can.

You actually get at the one area of recent horror films - of which I've seen a number, but certainly far from a majority - that doesn't sit well with me. The use of rape as a sort of instant terror in a box for their films. Devils Rejects does this to an extent and so does the new Hills Have Eyes. It's obviously a personal and very subjective reaction, as scenes of torture - even very graphic ones - don't unnerve me so. But that's a line that I feel if a filmmaker crosses, they better have something significant going on to justify it. Again, very subjective on my part.

Devils Rejects I almost walked out on out of, and I never walk out of movies. It wasn't so much discomfort with the goings-on on the screen as a sense of "you didn't earn this." I'm glad I stayed through though, since Rob Zombie I think actually does justify the earlier scenes through the way he shifts the sympathy to the perpetrators in the later torture scenes. At first I thought this was lazy - "You want me to sympathize with these monsters?" Later on, in the slow burn we were talking about, I realized that shift always occurs if you witness someone inflicting pain long enough. You always start to emphasize with the victim. Which is why the rigteous violence of crass action films never lasts too long - you might start to feel something for the victim. Smart on Zombie's part, or do people here think I'm giving him too much credit?

I don't see how people feel like Hills Have Eyes has a strong political component though - flag through the neck or not. The villains are made too much into monsters, and the abuse of the main character goes on so long in comparison to his fighting back that all you feel is relief when he finally kills some mutants. Or again, am I saying something about myself here and not the film, haha?

One thing Aja did do in Hills Have Eyes that I appreciate was open the frame up a bit. I know a tight composition allows that something "ANYTHING!" could be around the corner "and you just can't see it" is a standard of suspense, but when you never ever open the frame up, instead of racketting the tension you burst the bubble. It becomes an "oh for god sakes, what else is next?". Some of the so called J-horror films definately fall victim to this.

The open vistas in Hills Have Eyes point to a stylistic reference point that isn't mentioned too much: the spaghetti western. Isn't the slow to respond hero finally fighting back a standard of that genre as well? The score not so subtly (ok with the subtly of a sledgehammer) points to this as well. Is the myth of the western meeting up with ultra-violence part of this so called post-9/11 horror? Of course, the spaghetti westerns Hilsl Have Eyes reference were supposed to be deflating the mythology of the classic western...

Circles with in circles. Cheers!

The newsweek article is interesting for the mainstream publication it is. The paper I work for actually ran a similar story in the run up to the Oscars. You can see it here.

Again, a mainstream perspective, but horror (films) are in the air these days.

Robert K.:

"Even if Roth and Aja have a important message behind their films, if most of the audience doesn't get that message or get the opposite, should they not make those films?"

I think the answer is yes, they should. To take another topic that this blog covers quite well, a goodly chunk of the audience of The Sopranos tunes in every week just to see who gets whacked (and maybe to catch a glimpse of the Bada Bing girls); if there's no violence, the episode sucked. Obviously that's not why the makers of that show made the show, and obviously they shouldn't stop making it because such folks exist.

"Conversely, if Roth and Aja have nothing except cheap gimmickry and shock tactics in mind, but the a good portion of the audience gets an interpretation that is constructive, are these films good?"

Here I think the answer is no, and that's pretty much what we're all trying to address. What Christopher is seeing in these various movies he touts in his piece is probably admirable, but is it actually present in the films? Wishful thinking can't really speak to the quality of the work we're thinking about, is what it comes down to for me.

In regards to the Abu Ghraib/Guantanamo issue brought up by some commenters, surely those images are having and will continue to have a major effect on horror filmmakers, but I also think the effect is a facile and shallow one. Matt Cornell puts it this way:

"I just think that the exploration of such themes in popular culture needs to be informed by political and moral concerns, not tossed in as another ingredient for timely effect."

I'd remove the political aspect because I think that makes the issue safe and easy to defuse for people who believe themselves to be on the goodthinkful side of the issue being addressed: "Hey, I voted for Kerry, so I can enjoy Hostel secure in the knowledge that I'm AGAINST torture!" In other words, "informed by political concerns" and "tossed in as another ingredient for timely effect" are by no means mutually exclusive, and I think in Roth's case they're probably one and the same, and the work is the poorer for it.

I think a movie where the narrative is constructed to make torture a vital tool for the protagonist, such as Man on Fire, is much more problematic than a narrative in which the protagonist is him/herself tortured, such as Hostel. The catharsis in one leads to Abu Ghraib, the catharsis of the other reflects the other side of the equation. Not that Eli Roth is a strong social/political voice, but I think he's closer to the right side of the issue.

I think Kelly gives his teen audience too much credit. I saw Wolf Creek at a late Friday night show in Times Square.

The setting of the film was unfamiliar enough, and the three main characters and their relationship to one another just intriguing enough to keep me fairly engrossed through the first 2/3 of the film. The audience around me and my friends, presumably representative of the "f**kin' awesome" type that makes these movies into hits, were demonstrably impatient waiting for the impalings and beheadings to begin.

I'm not sure how much my reaction to the film's last half-hour was based on my perception that the filmmaker had brought things to this horrific point with unusual skill and grace, and how much was just relief that these idiots had finally turned their pagers off and shut the hell up. These people might be responding on some subconscious level to what's going on in the world around (presuming they know), but it's a stretch to say that they "get it."

In any case, I think what this generation of horror films loses in relation to the classic '70s films like TCM and Last House is that, for the most part, they all feel so very calculated. There's never that sense (as they talk about in The American Nightmare) that there might actually be a lunatic behind the camera, as there was with the above-mentioned and the original Night of the Living Dead, as opposed to some ambitious, hopefully clever twerp hoping to score big bucks and move on to something more "ambitious."

James said:

Smart on Zombie's part, or do people here think I'm giving him too much credit?

FWIW, I don't think you're giving him too much credit -- I feel that reversal at the end was carefully constructed by Zombie, maybe even the raison d'etre of the whole thing. He sets up these despicable characters, has them do the most horrendous things... then gives them the torture they "deserve", and asks us point blank if it makes us feel better. I can't imagine anyone answering in the affirmative.

I don't expect anyone to agree, and I know it's perverse, but for me, that scene makes TDR a positive movie, in both a political and moral sense.

Josh, to defend teenagers for a moment, it could be that the problem with your Times Square audience wasn't that they were teens, but that they were in Times Square, home of the absolute godawful worst movie audiences in the world. Surely when Jerry Seinfeld and his date made out during "Schindler's List," they did it at the 42nd Street Loews.

Sean said…

“I'd remove the political aspect because I think that makes the issue safe and easy to defuse for people who believe themselves to be on the goodthinkful side of the issue being addressed: "Hey, I voted for Kerry, so I can enjoy Hostel secure in the knowledge that I'm AGAINST torture!" In other words, "informed by political concerns" and "tossed in as another ingredient for timely effect" are by no means mutually exclusive, and I think in Roth's case they're probably one and the same, and the work is the poorer for it.”

Maybe I wasn’t precise enough in my language. Given the absence of public debate around the mainstreaming of torture in US foreign policy, I think that any film which uses such images must be informed by political concerns. Otherwise it’s simply trading in the currency of loaded images. Again, for the record, I don’t think there’s a political thought in HOSTEL’s teeny little head. It’s a film which initially invites our contempt at its entitled American protagonists before reversing gears and confirming their xenophobia—becoming a simple chase picture and revenge fantasy. In other words Roth is having it both ways. And let’s not forget the totally retro homophobia embodied in that creepy character from the train. His killing (in a public restroom no less) was greeted with cheers by the teenage audience I viewed the film with.

The larger problem is that there is NO national debate on the use of torture. Therefore I don’t see how any film which took the subject seriously would be engaging in a “safe and easy” discourse. Nothing safe about it. (Witness the politically-motivated airport harassment of the actors in Michael Winterbottom’s forthcoming Gitmo docudrama.)

Political content in American films (Hollywood or indie) seems inversely related to the direness of the moment. And when a politically-charged film does get produced, it’s often attacked. Just look at the pummeling V FOR VENDETTA has received—and mostly from left wing critics.

KZA said…

“FWIW, I don't think you're giving him too much credit -- I feel that reversal at the end was carefully constructed by Zombie, maybe even the raison d'etre of the whole thing. He sets up these despicable characters, has them do the most horrendous things... then gives them the torture they "deserve", and asks us point blank if it makes us feel better. I can't imagine anyone answering in the affirmative.”

I’ll have to give this another look, because at first viewing I was left with the impression that Zombie couldn’t give a fuck about politics. In fact, when Elvis Mitchell interviewed him and asked if the film was meant to be political, he said it wasn’t, suggesting instead that it was an homage to the horror films and grindhouse cinema of the 70s, which were often very political. So, to the degree that Zombie is making a genre pastiche, his film has a vague political subtext, but only in the hand-me-down fashion of a Tarantino. Basically I think he enjoys the scene where Otis fondles a woman’s vagina with a gun just as much as Tarantino loves the rape scene in PULP FICTION. This kind of bravura sadism is shocking, but ultimately pretty empty, especially in a film filled with movie geek jokes.

Matt Cornell said:

> I’ll have to give this another
> look, because at first viewing I
> was left with the impression that
> Zombie couldn’t give a fuck about
> politics. In fact, when Elvis
> Mitchell interviewed him and asked
> if the film was meant to be
> political, he said it wasn’t,
> suggesting instead that it was an
> homage to the horror films and
> grindhouse cinema of the 70s,
> which were often very political.
> So, to the degree that Zombie is
> making a genre pastiche, his film
> has a vague political subtext, but
> only in the hand-me-down fashion
> of a Tarantino.

I would say if it is there, and nowadays I think it is, it is most assuredly subtext. Zombie is more interested in grindhouse homage and what our host calls terror, but I think the political leaks around the edges a bit more than just as a hand me down.

On the full-disc longer-than-the-film making of on the second DVD, Sid Haig talks about how in such extreme times, fantasies have to become more extreme. This is not anything particuarly insightful, but I do think it implies there was some discussion on the set of such topics. That is pure speculation on my part; I didn't read/see the Elvis Mitchell interview so I don't know if he directly contradicts this or just wants to skirt the issue.

Earlier, in regards to Hostel, you also said:

> Otherwise it’s simply trading in
> the currency of loaded images

Are political images of a certain variety only able to be used when directly addressing an issue with a well thought out and ideology-specific point of view? I don't think so. News and media are bombarded constantly on the populace and I believe it is their right and also the right of artists in general to recontextualize that to their purposes.

It's always better when there is a purpose there, but sometimes there is something to letting it just leak in (the sinking ship imagery is strong with me on this post). Lynch seems to work this way a lot, but he also appears to give it a lot of thought that lesser artists might not. He doesn't share those thoughts, but thats a serparate issue...

I haven't seen Hostel, so I can't speak to its quality, but based on interviews, Roth is giving it thought as well. You say "Roth is having it both ways" in regards to hating his American characters then revenging them and that is a valid critique of the film and its politics. But I don't see how that makes it invalid. Otherwise, all we would be left with in terms of political imagery in film would be Marxist-era Godard. And I don't know, I think I prefer Godard when his Marxism seaps in around the corner of the frame as opposed to the overwhelming it. Cheers!

Although this is tangential at best to the discussion at hand, I just wanted to post a link to Dana Knowles's brilliant defense of Straw Dogs, which both Matt and That Little Round Headed Boy mentioned a bit dismissively. Her points about the use of violence and Peckinpah's subversion of audience expections about character in Straw Dogs are salient to the discussion at hand.

Shouldn't write without coffee. I meant that Straw Dogs had been mentioned only tangentially, but the points are salient. Apologies for the crap wording.

Glad you clarified that. I was just about to write that I have certain problems with the caveman wordview that's more endorsed than critiqued in that movie, but I would never dimiss it as art. To quote Ash the android in the original ALIEN, I admire its purity.

PS -- Thanks for the link.

Over at IFC Blog, Alison Wilmore surveys this here post, David Ansen's Newsweek piece and David Poland's blog entry, and caps it with this summation:

"The recent return to popularity of extreme splatter-fare is just a natural turn for a genre based on both certain formulas and on circumventing expectations to take — however tempting it is to make a sociological argument about signs of the times, 9/11, Abu Ghraib, and on and on...meh. In the end we just don't buy it, though we understand the temptation. It's the holy grail of reverse film snobbery — the genre film (and horror seems to get saddled with this expectation the most these days) that trumps all high-minded arthouse fodder in capturing the essence of our time, accidental high art without any pretensions to be anything other than entertaining. We just don't think any of the titles being thrown out there are that film."

I don't like Reverse-reverse snobbery.

James said...

"Are political images of a certain variety only able to be used when directly addressing an issue with a well thought out and ideology-specific point of view?"

Of course not. They can be used in any way an artist sees fit, but we are still free to make aesthetic and critical judgements based on their films. 24 places torture in an ideologically-specific point of view and I find the show repugnant- a de facto piece of state propaganda. I like WOLF CREEK because it doesn’t invite my contempt for the victims and the violence it depicts is not cheapened or watered-down as it is in HOSTEL. While I don't find WOLF CREEK political, it at least encourages empathy toward the film's victims, which is a step in the right direction.

My criteria is by no means airtight. I'm a huge fan of Takashi Miike and he could hardly be called a responsible political filmmaker. But there's something about the success of HOSTEL- a mass-marketed American film- that is more than a bit disturbing, particularly at a time when there is no public discussion about the use of torture. Watching his film, I don't get the sense that Roth wants to create that discussion or that he wants us to think or feel anything about human suffering. And again, I wonder if the audience seeing this film knows anything about our torture sites around the world? Do they know that Slovakia is a place where the CIA might be torturing people right now, and not the other way around, as the film depicts? Is it Roth's responsbility to educate them? Maybe not. But the net effect of his film is to contribute to our passivity, ignorance and callousness about the issue.

"I don't think so. News and media are bombarded constantly on the populace and I believe it is their right and also the right of artists in general to recontextualize that to their purposes."

Of course it's their right to do so. But we're also free to question whether their purposes were of any aesthetic, artistic or political merit.

"Lynch seems to work this way a lot, but he also appears to give it a lot of thought that lesser artists might not. He doesn't share those thoughts, but thats a serparate issue…"

Well, he does and he doesn't. Lynch was a very outspoken supporter of Reagan. And he has been very vocal about his involvement with the TM cult. Lynch seems to be a libertarian, with an attraction to the aesthetics of American conservatism. Politics in Lynch's films are something else entirely. Though his stories could be read as either left or right wing, Lynch's effect on movies as an artform was nothing short of radical.

"I haven't seen Hostel, so I can't speak to its quality, but based on interviews, Roth is giving it thought as well. You say "Roth is having it both ways" in regards to hating his American characters then revenging them and that is a valid critique of the film and its politics. But I don't see how that makes it invalid."

By "having it both ways" I mean that the film's point of view is so slippery that it could be equally embraced by the right wing or the left. This may be a financial reality. Partisan films are likely to make less money at the box office. But in a national climate so skewed to the right, a film that's playing both sides is de facto right wing, since it does nothing to get us unstuck. See also: TEAM AMERICA.

Thanks for continuing this discussion. Apologies to Matt for filling up his comments space. Check out a similar discussion about V FOR VENDETTA here: http://www.november3rdclub.com/01-06/conversations.htm

matt cornell says, "Apologies to Matt for filling up his comments space." I'm not aware that such a thing is possible, but if so, let's find out.

Matt Cornell:

Just to be clear, I was aware of Zombie's protestations that his film wasn't political, but I'm of the school that sez (rightly or wrongly) a filmmaker's statement about his work is to be taken lightly at best, dismissed at worst. It's very difficult for me to believe that Iraq, Abu Ghraib, etc. weren't on his mind when he was making TDR, but the parallels and connections are so strong (to me) that it doesn't matter either way.

Great conversation, folks -- Keep fillin' the comments space!

Interesting conversation, glad I've come across this blog. Also want to apologize to the proprietor if this thread has been hijacked at all. But, onward and upward... or is it downward in the case of horror films?:

Matt Cornell said...

> Of course not. They can be used in
> any way an artist sees fit, but we
> are still free to make aesthetic
> and critical judgements based on
> their films.

and later...

> Of course it's their right to do
> so. But we're also free to
> question whether their purposes
> were of any aesthetic, artistic or
> political merit.

And I don't mean to suggest otherwise! I think earlier my main contention with some of your arguments is that it appears to be making a moral - for lack of a better word - judgement about the film based more upon its relationship to current events then its content. You do make me think otherwise though when you talk about...

> 24 places torture in an
> ideologically-specific point of
> view and I find the show
> repugnant- a de facto piece of
> state propaganda. I like WOLF
> CREEK because it doesn’t invite my
> contempt for the victims and the
> violence it depicts is not
> cheapened or watered-down as it is
> in HOSTEL. While I don't find WOLF
> CREEK political, it at least
> encourages empathy toward the
> film's victims, which is a step in
> the right direction.

And fair enough. That is a pretty valid reason to prefer Wolf Creek and judge it as having value over Hostel.

In this area, its a bit of a matter of taste as Wolf Creek's usage of graphic violence, empathetic or not, just doesn't appeal to me for a feature. Used as part of a larger narrative, very effective. Taste.

Hostel comes out on DVD what next week? I'm sure my girlfriend will pick it up, which is how I end up seeing most horror movies anyways. I find it kind of funny I've been drawn into this conversation so completely. I think I'd rather watch the making of the Devil's Rejects again before I would the film - and in the end I liked the Devil's Rejects. So add that into the equation when calculating my arguments.

> My criteria is by no means
> airtight. I'm a huge fan of
> Takashi Miike and he could hardly
> be called a responsible political
> filmmaker.

Miike's stuff is good, and pretty... apolitical? But still, he has wit which goes a long way in horror/terror for me.

> Watching his film, I don't get the
> sense that Roth wants to create
> that discussion or that he wants
> us to think or feel anything about
> human suffering. And again, I
> wonder if the audience seeing this
> film knows anything about our
> torture sites around the world? Do
> they know that Slovakia is a place > where the CIA might be torturing
> people right now, and not the
> other way around, as the film
> depicts? Is it Roth's
> responsbility to educate them?
> Maybe not. But the net effect of
> his film is to contribute to our
> passivity, ignorance and
> callousness about the issue.

Unfortunately thats a heavy load on any film. And audience reactions... heck, even films that practically make reactions to violence their subject matter like A History of Violence get cheers where filmmakers expressely (like in commentaries) expect the opposite reaction. I know some critics have issue with any film that uses the thrill of cinematic violence in supposedly anti-violent connotation, but that's a different matter.

> By "having it both ways" I mean
> that the film's point of view is
> so slippery that it could be
> equally embraced by the right wing
> or the left. This may be a
> financial reality. Partisan films
> are likely to make less money at
> the box office. But in a national
> climate so skewed to the right, a
> film that's playing both sides is
> de facto right wing, since it does
> nothing to get us unstuck.

Thats a much harder line then I would be comfortable with. Is ambiguity to be wiped away? Or, are you making a difference between intentional, artistic ambiguity and lazy, profitable ambiguity? That would be fair, but where that lines fall would always be a matter of taste. Which brings us to:

> See also: TEAM AMERICA.

Ditto here, I HATED Team America. Team America though does make the subject of politics text though, and not subtext. I'll be curious to see if I think Hostel does the same, or if its mainly the marketing that brings it to the forefront.

> Check out a similar discussion
> about V FOR VENDETTA here:

Looks interesting, I'll give it a more thorough read. For now, back to work. Cheers!

Hi--I know I'm awfully late to be chiming in here, and the discussion's pretty well over, but I've posted something relevant about the movies under discussion on my blog, if anyone's interested.

Boy, I really came in on this way too late. But anyway...

Matt wrote:
"Also Virgil X raises an excellent point about foreign filmmakers (even splatter/horror specialists) being granted more leeway than US filmmakers... I am currently writing a review of the Russian movie '4'... watching it, I did find myself thinking, 'If an American director made a film like this, wouldn't he/she be blasted as pretentious?'"

I agree that they would be, Matt, not because I don't think the critics would cut the filmmaker a break, but because I wouldn't buy anything like that coming from most of the American genre filmmakers of today. I couldn't buy Eli Roth, for instance, trying to inject any artistic maneuvers into his movies (hell, I don't even buy the exploitative maneuvers he tries to pull off) frankly because I don't think he has the sincerity to do so. And, to me, sincerity is the major element that is missing from the American genre flicks that have come out in that last couple decades (especially the flicks that came out after Scream).

Compare Hostel (yes, I have it out for Roth) and Last House on the Left… Neither one is close to being my favorite genre flick, but I can say that Last House is by far the better movie, being separated by the sincerity of the filmmaker. Both flicks were made to shock the crap outa the audience, but only Last House really succeeds in its quest because it “went there.” Craven unflinchingly shows the audience just how sick and depraved humanity can be (and he made them enjoy it to an extent!), because he had the balls to dig within himself and expose his own guts on the screen. Whereas, the only thing Roth exposes to the audience is that he’s watched a lot of other filmmaker’s flicks and has them all catalogued neatly in his head. Roth never does “go there.” Rather he cuts away (or, as in Cabin Fever, adds a CG red screen) just as the audience is about to get a taste of all that “gore” that he once lamented was so sadly missing from today’s genre flicks, and that he promised to deliver to us once again.

The reason why someone like Lynch can pull of the “pretentious’ stuff is because he has a real love for filmmaking. He plays with conventions and ideas because he has an artistic eye, a creative sensibility. Fanboys like Roth or James Wan could never take a position of artistic distinction with their own movies unless they first saw it in someone else’s.