Why do people hate gore/extreme horror films

[BurnedOut]

I cannot get enough of gore (good realistic one, not the funny cartoonish shit like Braindead). The French Extremity movement seems like such a delightful addition to the horror scene which is otherwise overreliant on tropes that don't change over a long time - from Conjuring to Annabelle to basically every other film which dichotomizes protagonists and antagonists and/or have a linear, clearly predictable storyline. It takes the fun out of horror films which really on sound effects to get the job done along with jumpscares.

Irreversible is the latest film I have watched and I have absolutely loved it. Nothing is more delightful for me than this formula which seems to work really well under most circumstances (for me) -
- unpredictable plot
- good amounts of realistic gore
- (optional) trangressive elements

watching SAW and Hostel was like having popcorn, I get cheap horror highs from good gorno films but it looks like I have exhausted my options because I am having a tough time finding 1990+ gory violent films.

Hence the French Extremity Movement which has been quite delightful to me except the senseless sexual violence which does not disturb me the least but simply makes me a bit disgusted but I guess that's alright because, well, bodily violence is too common to be portrayed unlike psychological violence which most films cannot get right although I don't understand why sexual violence is the only unofficial 'most disturbing element'. Not enough films on suicidal thoughts, major depression, child abuse, codependency, etcetera, so I suppose the horror film industry has quite some homework to do other than portray characters with histrionic personalities.

Good 'disturbing' films:
- Martyrs 2008
- Irreversible
- House That Jack Built
- Antichrist

Honourable mention: August Underground Trilogy.
Seriously, the trilogy even beats cartel dismemberment videos.

PS: If you are interested, we can have a megathread on analysis of horror films. I cannot get enough of them

 

[birdsnestfern]

Heres one from Star Trek, Fatal earworm parasites had to be dug out with a pair of forceps and they caused madness.

 

[scorpiomover]

Why do people hate gore/extreme horror films​

I don't know that they do, other than Mary Whitehouse, and that was only in the 1980s. Gore/extreme horror films have been extremely conventional and mainstream for the past 40 years. Sensor genre.

 

[birdsnestfern]

I don't hate it in movies, just in real life.

I am an Outlander series fan, which can be quite violent. lust, sex, gore, death, rape, torture, throat slitting, hangings, brutal beatings, mass deaths, witches bathing in blood, ears being torn off on pillaries, bodies being stuffed into barrels of creme de menthe, etc. Thinking of the Steven Bonnet scene where America the Beautiful plays while throats are slashed, or Bree is raped by a pirate, or Scottish clan men are gored by wild hogs, and stomach contents are hanging out, etc, too many to list. I don't love looking at it, but it certainly is a good picture of what life might have really been like in the past.

Classics like Bonnie and Clyde, Deliverance, God Father, Halloween, Psycho, Repulsion, Willard, Gladiator, Crouching Tiger, etc.
Its awful of course, but entertaining and not real. The Dahmer series, and the "You" series on netflix were a bit unsettling, but chose to see anyway.
Yes, it might take me a day or two to unwind, but it helps us get away from the real life issues for a moment anyway.

 

[Cognisant]

For me gore is like the icing on a cake, a cake without icing is kinda boring, a cake that is all icing would quickly get sickening, which is not to say icing makes me sick just that I need it paired with something of substance to really enjoy it.

That substance is the conceptual horror, in "Final Destination" its knowing there's an unseen ineffable force of death that's hunting them, in John Carpenter's "The Thing" its the uncertainty about who is infected, in "Terminator" it's the idea that some threat could come from the future and shatter your safe mundane reality without any warning.

By that reasoning to me the best gore is that which tells a story, like finding a buried corpse with its fingernails scratched off because that corpse was someone who was buried alive and instinctively tried to claw their way out.

 

[scorpiomover]

I don't hate it in movies, just in real life.

I am an Outlander series fan, which can be quite violent. lust, sex, gore, death, rape, torture, throat slitting, hangings, brutal beatings, mass deaths, witches bathing in blood, ears being torn off on pillaries, bodies being stuffed into barrels of creme de menthe, etc. Thinking of the Steven Bonnet scene where America the Beautiful plays while throats are slashed, or Bree is raped by a pirate, or Scottish clan men are gored by wild hogs, and stomach contents are hanging out, etc, too many to list. I don't love looking at it, but it certainly is a good picture of what life might have really been like in the past.

I've seen stuff happen in real life and can see the difference, which is stark. So for me, unless the fiction matches what I already know happens in real life, it's just more Hogwarts.

 

[scorpiomover]

For me gore is like the icing on a cake, a cake without icing is kinda boring, a cake that is all icing would quickly get sickening, which is not to say icing makes me sick just that I need it paired with something of substance to really enjoy it.

That substance is the conceptual horror, in "Final Destination" its knowing there's an unseen ineffable force of death that's hunting them, in John Carpenter's "The Thing" its the uncertainty about who is infected, in "Terminator" it's the idea that some threat could come from the future and shatter your safe mundane reality without any warning.

I grew up in the 1970s, watching films like Salem's Lot, and TV series like Sapphire & Steel. Lots of conceptual horror back then.

By that reasoning to me the best gore is that which tells a story, like finding a buried corpse with its fingernails scratched off because that corpse was someone who was buried alive and instinctively tried to claw their way out.

That sort of thing actually happened, because some people would go into a deep coma, where they only took a breath once a minute and incredibly slowly, and would be pronounced dead. Then they'd come back to life a few days later, when they'd already been buried.

FYI, I have a friend who went into a deep coma for about 3 days. He was pronounced dead. He was laid out in the mortuary, and woke up just as the pathologist performing his autopsy was about to cut him open. Made the newspapers. He kept some of the clippings.