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| The real-life horror of Hollywood films |
| Nick Benson |
In 1987 Arnold Schwarzenegger starred as Ben Richards in Stepehen Kings’s action thriller The Running Man. You can now find the movie in any Science-Fiction section. The movie, like so many other movies from the 80s that were supposed to take place in the very distant future, took place in 2017, well within our lifetimes. The plot was simplistic. Arnie was wrongfully sentenced to death, but rather than a realistic death by injection, Arnie is forced to play a deadly game. Futuristic gladiators chase the convict through the space-age city streets trying to kill him. All the while an adoring, violence-loving audience watches the action live. While King may have overestimated our ability to create flying cars and ridiculous futuristic clothing, he may not have been far off from the direction that entertainment is heading towards in our society.
In the 80s horror fans flocked to theaters to see the now comical stories of possessed dolls (Chucky), and the coming of the apocalypse via zombies (Dawn of the Dead). The 90s brought another transition in the horror film genre. Hack and slash films such as Scream and I Know What You Did Last Summer, along with their many sequels, dominated theater screens. Now six years into the new millennium, the horror film genre has seemed to transition once again, and it’s one terrifying transition.
No longer is the society we live in satisfied with the occasional fright caused by a goon jumping out of a dark room, or watching films through our spread fingers as we cower in the corner. Previous generations of horror filmmakers relied on the viewers’ imagination to piece together the brutality of what was occurring. Directors used to cut to a new scene right as the cold steel of the knife blade began to come downward to towards its victim; however, our society no longer finds that acceptable. Now cameras not only show the brutality on screen, but they linger on it. Horror directors no longer need to create intelligent films as Hitchcock once did. They simply need to be more sick, twisted, and disturbed than their predecessors. If all else fails, turn up the violence, make it look more real, and cut down on the plot.
It’s hard to say when and where this fascination with violence began. Many people agree that it all started with James Wan’s Saw. Saw told the story of a fatally sick man, who attempted to make people appreciate the gift of life by putting them into difficult situations and testing their will to survive. The film was famed for its final twist and the brutality of a scene when one of the “killer’s” victims is forced to cut off his own leg. The camera does not miss a beat. The film then featured a sequel, intelligently named Saw II, which has a character cut his own eye out before the opening credits have even rolled.
The most recent film, Hostel, directed by Eli Roth, ups the violence, blood, gore, and shock value while removing all hints of an actual plot, character development, and decent acting. Roth tells the story of two American backpackers enjoying Europe until they get mixed into a deadly business where tourists pay big bucks to be able to torture another human being. The film features the most gruesome scenes of torture and violence ever to come out of Hollywood. But don’t worry, Roth would consider this a compliment. The trailer of the movie is enough to make people squirm. Roth is not stupid. He knows that the society we live in loves the violence and shock value. He glorifies the fact that paramedics had to be called to assist people who actually became physically ill because of the film. So how successful can a film with no big name actors, a bad plot line, and the ability to make people ill be on its opening weekend? Five million tops, right? Wrong. The movie did get support, $20,000,000 worth.
We may not know where, when, or why this obsession began, but I do know that it will not stop as long as Americans are rushing to theaters to see it. Until Americans begin to boycott this type of disgusting film making the truly intelligent films will continue to be trapped late at night on AMC or the Independent Film Channel. The scary part of this trend is that it’s growing. When will it stop? What happens when it’s no longer shocking and gross enough to watch actors be tortured and killed in new and interesting ways? I don’t even want to think about it. It is truly horrifying.
So maybe Stephen King had more foresight than anyone could have ever predicted. So he missed with the flying cars and space suits, but is it out of the question that by 2017 fake deaths will not be shocking and gruesome enough? Is it unbelievable that our society could consider violence, “not realistic enough?” I see no reason to believe that this trend of violence loving will change, and no reason to believe that our reality TV craze and violence will not collide. It’s not that hard to imagine turning on your TV to Fear Factor and watching contestants have to walk across a balance beam hundreds of feet in the air with no cables and no net. In fact, I’m willing to bet that many Americans would sit by their TV screens just waiting to watch someone fall.
I thought it was the horror films that were supposed to be scary, not the interests of the fans of the genre itself.
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