victimization flicks- love em or hate em

[Bub the Zombie]

Admit it, you get a kick out of watching others getting caught in hopeless and fatal situations. "Torture porn" owes it's popularity to such movies. Thankfully reality is only a relative term when such movies are referred to it.

[jenna26]

Originally Posted by Papillon Noir

You hit the nail on the head, Scouse. I'm the same way. My level of interest really stems on the level of character development. There also needs to be some sort of a plot, it can have a bunch of holes, but I won't notice it if there is character development.

Usually comes down to character for me as well. If the characters are sympathetic and/or interest me (victims or killers) then I usually like the film and can overlook some pretty huge flaws with the film itself.

Often, like with Eden Lake, the characters will do something that I find personally ridiculous. When its a film like that (where there is no sense of "fun" or a sense of humor, or camp) then it can quickly start to lose my interest. Same thing happened with The Strangers. I can't even find it disturbing anymore because I am just so frustrated with the characters.

But I loved The Devil's Rejects, Inside, Them, and Martyrs. I even like the original Last House on the Left just because I think it was pretty effective for what they had to work with, and I still find much of it disturbing (but I find the bumbling cops out of place and HATE they were added in).

So, it depends on the film, and the characters. Like Angra though, I'm usually pretty.....sensitive..... when it comes to these kinds of films. :p There are few I just refuse to watch because I know it will go too far for me, personally.

Originally Posted by UngodlyWarlock

Ha, people take Hostel too seriously. Eli Roth was trying to make a Gore and Tits flick, nothing more.

I liked it for the appreciation to classic exploitation flicks Roth seems to have and the desire to make a movie to have "lots of gore and tits", just because. The fact that it did so well actually worked against it, because now you get the folks that use it as the pillar of modern day "torture porn". The ending of that movie was hilarious and the orange eye-goo was nothing "disturbing" even in the slightest bit. It was mainstream Troma, nothing more.

I think Roth's biggest mistake was making the sequel. That one took itself way too seriously, had no laughs, had no tits, and focused too much on this "victimization"...just boring as hell. Cabin Fever was better anyway...he needs to do more "Pancaaaakes!" movies, in my opinion.

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What's sad is that I think Roth WAS trying to make a smarter film than he made. He's just not that good of a filmmaker and didn't know how to do it effectively. I actually really liked Cabin Fever a lot more, because its goofy and fun, and he wasn't really trying to make it out to be more than it is.