fett on 11/10/2009 at 15:36

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Henke, I've not seen the Saw movies, so I'm probably speaking out of turn. I'm referring to movies in which the killer is depicted as the hero - the audience is rooting for him, and taking great pleasure in his triumph over-- and torture of --the innocent victims. The primary thing that draws most humans to stories is our innate need to identify with the protagonist in a fiction setting for a variety of obvious psychological reasons. I get the idea that many of these "torture" style movies are specifically designed so that the audience identifies with the killer, rather than the victims - they cheer when someone dies, laugh when someone is hurt, and are disappointed when/if the killer is caught or defeated. It's that level of identification that I find disturbing, not to mention my suspicion that like many of us, these movies DO meet the needs of some individuals, which speaks to a deeper problem that I'm not qualified to diagnose. I just know it creeps me the fuck out.

I think the "hero" factor makes this genre incomparable to most video games in which you play the true hero - vanquishing Nazis, zombies, or other bad guys. There are exceptions, but there aren't many commercially successful games in which you play a sadistic torturer who wins points for killing pregnant women with a can opener (or whatever). To me, that makes all the difference in the world.

I noticed another disturbing trend when I used to do family counseling (this is anecdotal at best, and the community I served is not very typical, so take it for what it's worth). People who enjoyed these kind of films usually exposed their young children to them as well. I had one incident where I simply could not convince the parents that the child was having nightmares and endangering other kids at school because of the constant barrage of horror movies she was being exposed to. I've seen the exact same trend with parents exposing children to pornography.

Here's my point (finally): In my experience, which I admit is limited, it seemed like the type of people who were entertained by Hostel, Saw, and the like, had an extremely faulty filter when it came to appropriate behavior - especially as it related to their parenting skills. It probably had more to do with the demographic in which I worked, but it is nevertheless a strong and consistent trend that I observed. Is it possible to just watch these films for fun and let that be it? I'm sure it is for an obviously intelligent person like yourself, but I suspect it's the tip of a much larger issue for many fans of the genre. I also can't see how they "needed" these films to help release some type of primal instinct, because many, many, many of the people I'm speaking of were avid hunters, sportsmen, etc. who had a variety of other, very visceral outlets for their bloodlust (if such a thing is even a consistent trait in modern man, and I would argue that it isn't).

fett on 11/10/2009 at 21:40

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Yeah, that's the problem - I can't name any movies like that. I wrongly assumed that was the idea with Saw and some of the Rob Zombie stuff. I'm not familiar enough with the genre. Are there NOT any of them that attempt to glamorize the killer (I think they ALL glamorize the killing itself) and make the audience identify and pull for him?

suliman on 11/10/2009 at 22:10

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I think Devil's Rejects was the only one that really tried to make you sympathize with the killers, but it was done in a very different way than what we're talking about here and was actually a pretty good movie. I haven't watched the Halloween remake(don't intend to, too- Carpenter's original is good enough for me.)
Just because House of 1000 Corpses or Hostel don't make you root for the killers doesn't mean they're not horrible pieces of shit, though. I can somewhat understand House of 1000 Corpses' B-movie appeal(I still think it's shit), but the Hostel movies really haven't got a single redeeming quality.

fett on 12/10/2009 at 00:28

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Yeah, but Dexter's a completely different thing because he doesn't torture people for sadistic pleasure. He has an impulse to kill, but the code that kills by is intended to inspire a sense of justice in the viewer. Also, the people he kills are either serial killers themselves, or people who got away with murder - not innocent victims as in the other movies we've mentioned. There's a big difference IMO between an intelligent look into the psyche of an impulsive killer, and the glorification of pain and torture inflicted on innocents just for the sake of the thrill.

CCCToad on 12/10/2009 at 00:53

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back on topic....

I've been skimming a bit around the web, and haven't found a good answer to my question.

Is there anything that separates this film from the typical gimmicky gorefest flicks that dominate the horror genre?