I understand this move towards showing gore in movies today and it actually has everything to do with the war in Iraq, to be honest. If one looks at the history of horror movies one cannot help but notice that it always reflects the political atmosphere. The '50s gave us stories of people being controlled by evil aliens at the same time we were afraid of people secretly being communists and invasions from outer space while we feared another global war. Movies like Invasion of the Body Snatchers and The Blob played perfectly on those fears.
The '60s saw a rise in the gore and torture films such as Bloodfeast just as Vietnam was getting more and more unpopular. In fact, the gore and torture only increased as the decade wore on. The '70s saw us no longer having faith in our government so naturally the Devil became a major villain with religion no longer being able to protect us in such classics as The Exorcist and The Omen and the '80s saw the birth of the personable killer because the '80s were all about style over substance.
It really is no surprise to me that in the days of Abu Ghraib we are seeing a return to the torture/gore movies. I just wish they would do original stories like Hostel and Saw and leave our classics alone — no matter how non-classic they may be.
Article comments
1 - Eric Berlin
I'm a huge fan of the original Hitcher as well, Brad. More than anything the film just works on a high level, telling a simple and engaging and scary story, and Howell's and Hauer's performances are outstanding.
And the finger scene will stay with me always!
Whatever happened to C. Thomas Howell by the way? He was a big star for a while there in the '80s, great in movies like Soul Man.
2 - Brad Schader
Soulman killed his career I think. It was viewed as a racist movie. He never recovered.
3 - Aaron Dorling
Re: Brad re Eric re CTH. I second that. He was killed by a 98 minute racist joke. Soul Man was his rise and fall from fame. The unjustified box office of the movie itself came on the strength of one funny site gag in its much hyped trailer, the lynching of a cabbage patch doll.
The disappointment. Once that gag was done with in the movie I started to wonder why I was still watching.
Nowadays theres no shortage of movies that edit down all 3 minutes of humor into a trailer perpetuating to be 98 minutes of rolling-in-the-aisle hilarity.
Nice blog though Brad. The first Alien movie also succeeded using a similar style (though not short on gore). One of the crew is killed in the air ducts while we, through the eyes of crew, are horrified watching two converging blips on a screen.
I did take the IMDB challenge though, and saw this:
The Hitcher II: I've Been Waiting (2003)
I am going to try really hard not to slow down at that car wreck.
4 - Dean Madonia
actually, the gore started out after the original version of the movie "The Omen." came out. That was the first movie to show all of the gore including the rediculous severed head in slow motion, bouncing on a pane of glass. After that box-office smash, Hollywood decided to show all. This has been a mistake in my opinion. There is no suspense if you show it all. It's like if everyone walked around naked all of the time. There is no mystery. no expectation.
A 'Blood and guts" or "Hack and slash" movie is not horror. it's only gore and the audiences are mostly immune to the shock value at this point. the only way to reach someone and really scare them is psycologically - with suspense. There is no suspense when you know that a bunch of bad, teen actors are going to be slowly killed by an unstoppable force one by one.
When will hollywood learn this? never. Now that pandora's box of gore has been opened, I am afraid movies will never be made for mature audiences - ie: adults.