Quote:
Originally Posted by crabapple
I think a lot of people are criticizing torture porn because it takes no talent, no talent whatsoever, to make it...no storytelling skills required. And I put most of today's sadistic "horror-like" movies in that category because the payoff to people who see these things is the long, protracted killing scenes. It comes to the same.
H. G. Lewis, now, that guy did his thing forty years ago, more or less, and while it was certainly not artsy, it was a bit fresher and more daring. Doing that stuff now is a refuge for people who don't know how to do anything else.
If you see a "horror filmmaker" who can't do suspense, you should take a good look at that "artist" and really question if their work has any merit at all. If you don't, you may very well be feeding your hard-earned money to an idiot who knows how to talk his way into a deal.
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correct me if I'm wrong, but it sounds like you're saying that the quality of a person's art should be judged by their motivations to produce such art.
HG Lewis did some groundbreaking stuff, yes, but he wasn't setting out to be an acclaimed artist. in fact, he readily admits that his now-infamous "blood" trilogy was made purely to turn a quick buck. I mean, that's exactly why his films were dubbed "exploitation," b/c they exploited the public's sensibilities and turned over a decent quick profit by doing so. he wasn't setting out to make art, yet many (including myself) see them in that light now b/c we can see the direct line between his films and the current trend towards "torture porn" (and whoever came up with that term should be shot, but that's another tirade). Lewis's films were violent as hell for the day, but they also contained some very edgy sexual stuff too (once again, considering the time period), much like today's batch of filmmakers.
now don't get me wrong. I am upset by the state of horror films these days, and I hate the crap that is being churned out to the ever-hungry-for-more genre fans such as ourselves, but to completely dismiss all of these films with one sweeping blow does a great disservice to the genre, in my opinion. in this case, one apple should not spoil the whole bunch, is what I'm saying.
to me, the bottom line is that horror films are popular again, which means more money will be put into horror movies, which in turn means more horror movies will be made. if you look at it that way, it's inevitable that, even through just sheer chance, a good movie is going to be made every now and then. if we didn't have the money being spent at the box office on crap like remakes and Wrong Turn 2, good movies like the Descent (good in my opinion, but that's not the point) would never get made.
so the bad turn that horror is on right now is a two-edged sword, in that on one hand you get crap, but without the money the crap generates, you don't get the occasional gold that somehow, lucky for us, gets cranked out.