Love. Sex.Violence.Horror.

[alan french]

Hi,
Thought that I would start a thread which might produce some interesting discussion.

How far should we go with regard to the the dipiction of love, sex, violence and horror?

Alan French.

[Moor Larkin]

Hi,
Thought that I would start a thread which might produce some interesting discussion.

How far should we go with regard to the the dipiction of love, sex, violence and horror?

Alan French.

Moor love and sex and less violence and horror......

[alan french]

Hi,
I am impressed with your very quick response.

Alan French.

[Sgt Sunshine]

I agree with Moor........do away with the Violence & Horror thats old hat....
Stick to the Love & Sex idea......your on to a winner...
Cheers
Sgt S

[jaycad]

i think horror has gone too far and needs to return to the subtlety of,for example, 'the innocents',todays horror consists of loud sudden 'jump out at you' moments and are no longer frightening.
the same thing with violence,films like 'saw' and 'hostel' are good examples of gratuitous violence over plot,the only violent scene in a film that has made me grimace is the kerb biting scene in 'american history x' -a scene in which you don't actually see an awful lot.
i couldn't care less about love/romance.
i find sex scenes to be pointless and embarrasing.

[GRAEME]

Love. Sex. Violence. Horror. Just need some ca-ca for my idea of a perfect film.

"Mangez vous mon caviar!" At knife point. With no clothes on.

[markrgv]

There seems to be a trend for the so-called 'torture porn' at the moment - which for some reason excites some and (understandibly) repels others.
I can't see we'll ever get back to the quality of film making that we saw with films like The Innocents - though the occassional film may come along that relies on story over gore, and still be successful.

[alan french]

Hi,
Before I go out, thankyou so far for your responses.

I am not sure where I stand myself on this subject, and it is interesting to see what other people's opinions are, irrespective whether they are funny or serious. To go into all my thoughts would be too long, but as most productions contain partially, or wholly, this subject, I feel it is one that should not be ignored by audiences and film makers.

Alan French.

[batman]

Old fashioned creepy horror I like, also suspenseful horror via a good serial killer thriller or similar. Extreme violence and gore I can do without but I do like a good screen punch up. Lightweight love stories (and rom-coms) bore me to tears, but a good well written drama about relationships I do enjoy. Sex scenes in mainstream films can be either hilarious or arousing, it depends on how they are made. Hard core sex films have never been my cup of rooibos.

[Moor Larkin]

Sex scenes in mainstream films can be either hilarious or arousing, it depends on how they are made.

They're always best when they add some plot element or meaningful character emotion to the plot, rather than just serving to while some screentime away, saving the script-writer coming up with any dialogue or allowing the director to reminisce to himself about his youthful days making soft-core porn....

The same could be said for violence I guess, but lots of that sort of banging seem far more mainstream and acceptable, if not almost de rigeur in fact.

One aspect of the sex and violence schtick I find amusing to ponder is that it seems most popular amongst impressionable younger people, whereas it is officially supposed to be aimed at mature adults......

On the other hand, I suppose we all want to feel younger these days so maybe I'm missing the point.

[torinfan]

Hi,
Thought that I would start a thread which might produce some interesting discussion.

How far should we go with regard to the the dipiction of love, sex, violence and horror?

Alan French.

I guess if you have an actor who portrays the heavy in a horror/fantasy film who pushes everyone else around because he is so much bigger than them and at the same time has plenty of sex appeal....

[Corinne]

Sounds like you are describing Love, Honour & Obey, the movie with Ray Winstone & other top Brit actors. The best of the genre for tongue in cheek with everything added in.

[zettel45]

There's always a temptation to push the boundaries of decency in these areas, and there's always an audience for such material. Some people (myself included, to be honest) enjoy the sensation of watching something transgressive or forbidden. That's probably more true of adolescents than adults, if only because the young are still exploring the possibilities of sex and violence and films are a relatively risk-free way of getting to grips with these areas, exploring what one feels about them, etc, etc.

Some (me again) prefer their graphic content to be provided in a dramatic context which in some way "justifies" it, but there are plenty who don't really care about context; they just want to see. This, I think, is partly behind a common trend in films: ground is broken by a movie which can (more or less) justify its content dramatically, but then other yet more graphic films follow in its wake which make less and less effort to justify its extreme content. In fact, the extremity becomes the point of such films.

Take Saw, for example. It was an extremely nasty, graphic film which blatantly delighted in the inventiveness of the sadistic mind. But - as a kind of sop to decency - it placed this delight inside a rather old-fashioned morality tale: bad people met an ingeniously violent bad end. There's no doubt, however, that what stays with you about the film is not the "moral" but the horror. "Torture Porn" had been created (a mere 200 years after the Marquis de Sade invented it in literature) and the films that followed saw less and less reason to justify the torture. Hostel, for example, simply takes a bunch of ordinary kids and has them tortured for 90 minutes. The "moral" of the film is that torture is really painful.

And that, of course, is the problem. Films such as Hostel are a dead-end. They have nothing at all to say and play to progressively smaller audiences and then die out.

And then someone hits upon a new way of transgressing boundaries and the cycle starts again.

[narabdela]

Sounds like you are describing Love, Honour & Obey, the movie with Ray Winstone & other top Brit actors. The best of the genre for tongue in cheek with everything added in.

An excellent, and sadly underrated movie. Nice to find another fan.

[Mr Sloane]

There's always a temptation to push the boundaries of decency in these areas, and there's always an audience for such material.
Take Saw, for example. It was an extremely nasty, graphic film which blatantly delighted in the inventiveness of the sadistic mind. But - as a kind of sop to decency - it placed this delight inside a rather old-fashioned morality tale: bad people met an ingeniously violent bad end. There's no doubt, however, that what stays with you about the film is not the "moral" but the horror. "Torture Porn" had been created (a mere 200 years after the Marquis de Sade invented it in literature) and the films that followed saw less and less reason to justify the torture. Hostel, for example, simply takes a bunch of ordinary kids and has them tortured for 90 minutes. The "moral" of the film is that torture is really painful.

And that, of course, is the problem. Films such as Hostel are a dead-end. They have nothing at all to say and play to progressively smaller audiences and then die out.

And then someone hits upon a new way of transgressing boundaries and the cycle starts again.

I agree,I have seen Saw and while I admired the inventiveness I can' actually say I enjoyed it and certainly have no inclination to watch any of the sequels or copycats.
By the way could we have had Saw without the mainstream success of Se7en ?

[Kitty Whiskers]

Sex, Violence & Horror are often markers of lazy and unimaginative script writing. Scriptwriters also mistake Love for Shagging. Quite frankly, I'm bored with uninspired movie making - give me something with something to SAY.

[wellendcanons]

Brian Clemens said something like; "It's best to keep violence off the screen and in the imagination of the audience where it belongs." All the most tense, scary suspense films have been made that way IMO. I'm not against the odd bit of violence though as long as it is not just being done for the sake of it. Graphic violence is not personally for me.

I do like a love story if it has some substance. Films that examine human relationships are right up my street. I don't go for poorly made, substanceless love stories though. Not my scene at all.

Sex in films depends on my mood really. Though I have become bored with the hasty 'let's rip eachother's clothes off and shag eachother senseless' approach to film. I think it has become too conventional and boring. I'm not going to be a hypocrite and pretend I don't like to see attractive women in nude scenes! Of course I do! I'm only human! I'm equally not over fussed if there isn't nudity in the film either. When I'm in my deep meaningful mood, which is actually quite often, I do love a real good drama that tears at the heartstrings. But it has to be subtle and not in your face. Indulgent films that try too hard to make you sad don't work for me at all.

wec

[Steve Crook]

Brian Clemens said something like; "It's best to keep violence off the screen and in the imagination of the audience where it belongs."

The same with horror as well. The scariest thing ever allowed in a cinema is the imagination of the audience. Explicit "horror" is usually just boring.

The best one of the Alien series was the first one because the monster was hardly ever seen.

I agree with what you say about love & sex on screen as well

Steve

[IanG]

I tend to think that it's always a good idea for the film makers to leave some room for the audience's imagination.
Graphic or violent imagery in horror is fine, and often essential, when used reasonably sparingly and at the right times; it needs to be the exception rather than the rule in order to retain its impact as its overuse can make it mundane and ineffective.
I think that a similar principle applies to sex in the movies. I'm not saying for a minute that the moviemakers should justify sex scenes with a love context, but I do think it makes a scene more convincingly erotic if there is a believable connection between the characters.
As to what we actually see on screen, I think sometimes leaving a bit more to the audiences imagination is a good idea. Besides, xxx entertainment is widely available if that's your thing, so maybe tastefully done sex scenes make a refreshing change now and again.

[zettel45]

The best one of the Alien series was the first one because the monster was hardly ever seen.

And yet at the same time the first Alien film was the harshest, most graphic of the four. Yes, the monster(s) were more visible in the sequels - largely a budgetary concern - but none of them dared show the "skull-smashing" sequence in the same detail as Scott's original. It's interesting that that was the one area the later films steered clear of; the famous "chest-bursting" scene was repeated ad nauseum, but the sight of the alien's extendable jaw crunching through a human brain seems to have been a step too far.