| Author | Message | ||
     Frank (Frank) Username: Frank Registered: 09-2008 Posted From: 85.222.86.21 |
Here's a review of the film. Obviously more a fan than a professional reviewer, but I thought people might be interested considering the director made Frontiers.http://io9.com/5781913/why-the-divide-is-the-most-disturbing-end+of+the+world-fl ick-weve-ever-seen | ||
| Protodroid (Protodroid) Username: Protodroid Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 109.79.99.99 |
From the review: "But do go see this film if you're curious to watch a pack of actors morph into rapist Gollum. It may be disgusting, but it's a good kind of gross that only comes around so often." I've come to believe that horror (and horror films in paprticular) are a form of mental self-harming. Self-harming is only secondarily about harming oneself, and primarily an attempt to control intolerable pain and/or anxiety. It can provide temporary relief but it's self-medicating and doesn't address the underlying causes of the pain and/or anxiety. I know the thesis won't be popular, but I've come to believe it's true. It's struck me that though horror fans claim horror allows them to face up to hard realities, they become defensive when questions are raised about what their own need to dwell on the horrific might mean about themselves. This is understandable - psychology tells us that the most sensitive areas of people's psyches will have huge tangled defenses around them, often invisible to the person within. The deepest we examine it is to use a word like "catharsis" then move on, to watching simulated acts of violence in our spare time. If self-harming actually solved things, that would be fine, but I don't think it does. It's a form of addiction. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.156.210.82 |
There are a lof of generalisations in that statement, Proto... I can actually see where you're coming from with this, but in my case certainly it isn't true. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.156.210.82 |
Lot not lof...sigh...edit function required. | ||
| Ramsey Campbell (Ramsey) Username: Ramsey Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 92.8.31.32 |
I hope I don't harm you all too much! | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.156.210.82 |
Ramsey, you are like a razor cut to the forearm. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 82.31.30.158 |
Why single out horror for this observation? What about, say, "feel-good" movies? After watching It's a Wonderful Life, we experience a few hours of life-affirming ecstasy before returning to the drudgery of daily existence. I think good literature, whatever the genre, is about bringing together disparate parts of ourselves. Bad literature is about indulging the bits of us we can't control. | ||
| Weber (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 194.66.23.11 |
And what about tragedy as a genre. A lot of the people who mop up every "10 hanky weepie" movie/film they can because they love a good cry are the first people to say that people who watch/read horror are sick. But they love watching or reading about death in exactly the same way. We read/watch what we want to because that's what we enjoy. That's what provides our entertainment. | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.37.199.45 |
I'm with you, Proto. You're talking about horror films in particular, and the way in which horror fandom makes excuses for crass, repetitive torture porn as the default art-form in the genre. For every film that approaches the supernatural in a subtle and thought-provoking way, there appear to be dozens of films about eyeball slicing and wound-rape that fandom praises as 'holding a mirror to the dark side' and similar vacuous cliches. It's time we accepted the truth: most contemporary horror films are drivel, and their existence is driven by the emotional problems of a dysfunctional male audience. The horror film genre has more in common with porn (including the 'gonzo' designation) than it does with any other kind of film. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 82.31.30.158 |
Oh, we have accepted the truth. It's hardly a complex one. But to claim all horror fiction is of this stripe is nonsense. Most fiction, genre or mainstream, has its unforgiveable and probably corrosive excesses. Horror gets the bad press because it probably deals with the more unpalatable emotions. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.156.210.82 |
most contemporary horror films are drivel Most contemporary films of any genre are drivel. isn't this a moot point? I probably love horror films because I'm fucked up. But I'm happy with that; I've faced my demons and for the most part I live peacefully with them. And I take comfort in the fact that at least I'm not fucked up enough to enjoy Sex in the City. | ||
| Weber (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 194.66.23.11 |
or Mamma Mia | ||
| Frank (Frank) Username: Frank Registered: 09-2008 Posted From: 85.222.86.21 |
I should have read the review more closely. I simply skipped most of it because I thought it would give perhaps some plot holes away. Sorry for that. If I'd paid attention to the line the 'reviewer' used as highlighted by Proto, I wouldn't have posted it. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.156.210.82 |
If I'd paid attention to the line the 'reviewer' used as highlighted by Proto, I wouldn't have posted it. Why not, Frank? I posted the same review earlier today on Facebook; didn't have a probem with that line at all. It's actually a film I'm looking forward to seeing. | ||
| Frank (Frank) Username: Frank Registered: 09-2008 Posted From: 85.222.86.21 |
Yeah, I know, but I understand where Joel and Proto are coming from. But I agree with Prof, too. I guess when you read a line like that the heart sinks, and 'we' understand the initial prejudices of people who don't read the horror novels/collections we do. Or watch the films we do. Anyway, old rope and all that. | ||
| Weber (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 194.66.23.11 |
I had a similar discussion with someone at work a while back. She criticised me for watching horror films asking what enjoyment could I possibly get out of watching people die on film. Then when she was talking about the latest death on Eastenders and how sad was when some character or other had died and how brilliant the episode was, I turned round and used her own questions straight back on her. What enjoyment could she possibly get out of watching people die. I suppose you could say that people who like the tragedies like to feel the hurt of the wounds, whereas us horror fans like to pick at the scabs (and occasionally eat them when noone's looking). | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.156.210.82 |
She criticised me for watching horror films asking what enjoyment could I possibly get out of watching people die on film. When people ask me questions like that, I usually tell them I masturbate as I watch. It helps highlight the absurdity of what they're saying and it also ensures that they never bother me again. | ||
| Weber (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 194.66.23.11 |
 | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.156.210.82 |
I'm far too old to be bothered to defend my cinemetic tastes, Weber - I prefer to upset people instead.  | ||
| Weber (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 194.66.23.11 |
I just like pointing out when people are hypocrites. | ||
| Ramsey Campbell (Ramsey) Username: Ramsey Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 92.9.255.198 |
"The horror film genre has more in common with porn (including the 'gonzo' designation) than it does with any other kind of film." This may be true of some examples. It certainly isn't true of the genre as a whole (and forgive me, Joel, but will I have seen more horror films than you have?). I would point out that Proto only parenthesised about horror films; he does refer to horror fiction as a wider form. | ||
| Weber (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 109.150.142.245 |
I've been thinking about this on my walk home from work. Many many of the peopel who will criticise horror in all its forms will happily curl up with an Agatha Christie novel or watch the myriad cosy crime series on TV. At least horror fiction is actually honest about death being unpleasant. So much of crime fiction simply regards a violent and horrible death as nothing more than a puzzle for a little old lady or some other family friendly detective to work out. Admittedly there are those authors out there, the Mo hayders, the Mark Billinghams etc, who blur the lines netween the genres but in general I would argue that horror is a healthier genre to follow than the cozy crime | ||
| Protodroid (Protodroid) Username: Protodroid Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 109.79.13.228 |
Frank, no problem, I do that sometimes too. Sorry for hi-jacking the thread. I was talking about all horror to a greater or lesser extent (lesser for literature and up-market films).* Mental self-harming might be useful initially as a way of approaching difficult subject matter obliquely. But many become stuck at that stage. More mature work will have a psychological element. When we’re ready for it, it can raise understanding into more conscious strata. I think I've said this before somewhere, but I suppose I'm viewing art as a branch of medicine and taking the stance that we chose this very particular interest for a very particular reason. If not, why not gardening or stamp-collecting? (*An old interview with Rupert Murdoch in which he dismissed "up-market" and "down-market" as categories got me thinking. If we accept what he's saying (and a lot of people have) then there's no difference in the intellectual rewards offered by different pieces of art. Therefore since the reward from all good art are essentially the same, there’s no reason to take the difficult road of reading The Odyssey when one can take the easy one of reading Salem’s Lot.) | ||
| Protodroid (Protodroid) Username: Protodroid Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 109.79.13.228 |
This phenomenon isn't confined to horror fans, it's just more obvious with them, I think. Certainly, I'm amazed by people who think of horror as being weird and sick and yet these same people will read exploitative books about true crime for ghoulish entertainment. Still, let's not point fingers - that's a defence mechanism to avoid the original focus on ourselves. | ||
| Protodroid (Protodroid) Username: Protodroid Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 109.79.13.228 |
I consider up-market horror to be surgery, which is, after all, a controlled wound. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 82.31.30.158 |
>>>An old interview with Rupert Murdoch in which he dismissed "up-market" and "down-market" as categories got me thinking. If we accept what he's saying (and a lot of people have) then there's no difference in the intellectual rewards offered by different pieces of art. It's hardly a thought unique to Murdoch. It's at the core of many postmodernist thinkers. Both sources are equally questionable, IMHO. | ||
| Frank (Frank) Username: Frank Registered: 09-2008 Posted From: 85.222.86.21 |
Proto - no, mate, I agree with why such a line would negatively resonate. Prof - Thankfully everything is questionable (: | ||
| John Forth (John) Username: John Registered: 05-2008 Posted From: 82.24.1.217 |
After seeing THE DIVIDE at last year's Frightfest, I said that your opinion on it would largely be dependent on your opinion of the human race. It's grim, nihilistic and hopeless, but overwrought enough to never be less than entertaining. Personally, I think the reviewer linked to above is being a bit over-sensitive. It's a harsh film, but I didn't think it was that brutal. That said, the fella sitting next to me in the cinema said that he thought it was a more savage and upsetting film than the Lucky McKee/Jack Ketchum collaboration THE WOMAN, which we'd seen the night before. Incidentally, the quote from the review ("a pack of actors morph into a rapist gollum") that kicked off this whole debate is misrepresentative of the film itself. In fact, that whole review makes it sound a lot grislier and more exploitative than it actually is. Or maybe I'm just desensitized to it all...  | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.29.56.240 |
...he said while packing his knife, bin liners and shovel, and going out on the trawl. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.96.253.77 |
taking the stance that we chose this very particular interest for a very particular reason. I agree totally with that. I've spent a lot of time wondering why I enjoy brutal, vicous and terrifying art rather than, say, gardening or making ships out of matchsticks. For me (and I'm not speaking for anyone else) I think it has to do with my psychological scars. But, as I said, I'm comfortable with this. Low-brow and high-brow art? Yes, I think there's certainly a distinction. There is to me, anyway. But both strands can have a lot to offer...the danger comes when people don't think there's a distinction, and they'd rather watch Hostel than Last Year at Marianbad (both of which I happen to think are brilliant, in entirely different ways and for entirely different reasons). | ||
| Frank (Frank) Username: Frank Registered: 09-2008 Posted From: 85.222.86.21 |
Hostel III? Las Vegas? Looks terrible. Sorry, off track, but still. | ||
| Protodroid (Protodroid) Username: Protodroid Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 109.79.12.54 |
I agree Zed. I don't subscribe to the idea that there are only good or bad films. In his Starburst column many years ago John Brosnan proposed the following categories (the examples are mine and are less than perfect): The good bad film (Evil Dead II) The bad bad film (Halloween II) The bad good film (maybe The English Patient) The good good film (2001: A Space Odyssey) | ||
| Protodroid (Protodroid) Username: Protodroid Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 109.79.12.54 |
"I think it has to do with my psychological scars. But, as I said, I'm comfortable with this." Good stuff, self-knowledge. Very empowering. I wonder as those scars heal do we eventually shed horror like a scab? | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.96.253.77 |
Scars never heal. They simply fade. | ||
| Protodroid (Protodroid) Username: Protodroid Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 109.79.69.41 |
This may be an example of taking a metaphor so far that it limits thought rather than freeing it. If we replace "scars" with the more general word "damage", I do think that it can, with a lot of work and help, be repaired. Time alone heals nothing, though. It takes conscious will and hard work. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.29.56.240 |
>>>Time alone heals nothing, though. It takes conscious will and hard work. I don't know. That reminds me of a line in King's LT's Theory of Pets, which runs something like, "The therapists say talking is the best way of sorting out a bad marriage, but they are all either homosexual or divorced. No, silence is a marriage's best friend." | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.29.56.240 |
Or as Martin Amis puts it, "I've got a lot of time for self-deception." | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.96.253.77 |
I've come to the conclusion that sometimes damage doesn't need repairing. Everybody's different; every experience is different. We take what we can from situations, we learn what we can, and we keep moving forward. Personally, my own damage has both held me back in some ways and pushed me forward in others. For example, I wouldn't be a published novelist if it wasn't for my damage. I wouldn't be married with a son if it wasn't for my damage. So, yeah, make your damage work for you, that's what I say. It's part of the human condition. Healing is overrated. | ||
| Frank (Frank) Username: Frank Registered: 09-2008 Posted From: 85.222.86.21 |
Alan Bennett made the same case for writers when giving a talk at Cambridge one year. I can't recall the writer he used as an example, but the person in question complained of the emotional damage inflicted on him by his parents. Bennett praised the writer, sympathised with his upbringing, but jokingly stated that the man should shut up and reap the benefits of having such wonderful material at hand (: There's an interesting interview with Jonathan Franzen on the Noble and Barnes Meet The Writers website (just look on Youtube), as he explains why in his non-fiction book/memoir 'The Discomfort Zone, he is still working his way through the trauma of his failed marriage, twenty years after it was ended. He genuinely and honestly explains how it has served, along with members of his family who also happened to be in his memoir (after all it's a memoir), as a source of material, whether right or wrong, for him as a writer. Watching him speak, he appears both uncomfortable and troubled by the emotional aftermath of what has propelled him to the forefront of writers in America. If anybody hasn't read any of his work (I'm sure people have), I'd seriously recommend 'Freedom,' and 'The Corrections.' | ||
| Frank (Frank) Username: Frank Registered: 09-2008 Posted From: 85.222.86.21 |
On a lighter note, it was great to see Stephen King also give an interview on the same Noble and Barnes website, answering a series of questions I'm sure he has grown tired of, but to which he answered in typical good humour. He was also asked about the (he makes it clear it could be apocryphal), incident in which his mother claimed he'd probably witnessed his friend killed by a freight train. He does concede (vaguely) that it led to him writing about it in the future (The Body??), but he's well noted for thinking this is an area in which emotional trauma is more the mainstay of psychologists trying to 'excuse' the reason why anybody would write horror. | ||
| Protodroid (Protodroid) Username: Protodroid Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 109.79.39.34 |
"The therapists ... are all either homosexual or divorced." Not much of a basis for a serious psychological theory, is it? I'm not at all convinced that suffering is required to make good art. Perhaps it's like insanity's relationship to creativity though - there's a sweet spot where one is unhinged enough to be unconventional but sane enough to have the desire and ability to communicate those ideas to others. I suppose if it's really our conscious mind deciding to leave things alone then that's healthy. But we must remember that unconscious defences will always give the same message. | ||
| Ramsey Campbell (Ramsey) Username: Ramsey Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 92.8.16.70 |
Suffering may not be required, but by God it often helps. | ||
| Frank (Frank) Username: Frank Registered: 09-2008 Posted From: 85.222.86.21 |
"I'm not at all convinced that suffering is required to make good art." It's tricky area. One the one hand it's something to draw on, on the other, the hoary stereotype of poets anguishing over the plight of their inner-selves clambering from emotional pits of despair, seems these days at best trite and disingenuous. I think past suffering translates more probably because it's in the past, even if it never truly vanishes. | ||
| Frank (Frank) Username: Frank Registered: 09-2008 Posted From: 85.222.86.21 |
Throw in some substance abuse, alcohol and borderline mental issues, and a general antipathy to humankind in general...hey presto, just add water and you have one bonafide aspiring writer (: | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.29.56.240 |
Anthony Storr's book on creativity is great on this issue. The Dynamics of Creation. I heartily recommend. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.96.253.77 |
Admission: I never read anything about creativity. I like that it's a mystery. I keep thinking that if I understood it, it might stop working. So I shan't be reading that book, mate...  | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.29.56.240 |
It's not really about how it works, mate. More about its purpose. Why we feel compelled to do it. And Storr has some intuitively appealing ideas. He debunks each 'cliched' notion as he develops his argument and concludes with a very powerful insight. | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 2.24.7.226 |
Glad to hear Storr is well informed and perceptive about creativity. His writings on human sexuality are ignorant, pernicious tripe that five minutes of conversation with the people he's writing about would have blown apart. Does trauma inspire creativity or stunt it? In my case, both. Certain experiences have fed my imagination, passion and sensitivity. Certain other experiences have ripped the confidence and faith out of me. It's a complex business. Some kinds of bother set you on fire and the result is worth looking at. Certain kinds of bother just switch off whatever you had going for you in the first place. Life is about struggle. I'm not interested in smug and secure writers. Those who are battling and not beaten, hurt but not inert, they're the ones I want to hear from. | ||
| Protodroid (Protodroid) Username: Protodroid Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 109.79.98.245 |
Yes, struggle. And can we not struggle against equanimity as well as hardship? A haunting thought is that often we'll never know if our hardships brought brought us closer towards or further from our potential, because we're each an unrepeatable experiment. | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 2.24.7.226 |
Ramsey, I wanted to get back to you on the subject of horror films but haven't had any time. I didn't mean to suggest that the horror film genre as a whole is characterised by sadism or misogyny. A lot of my favourite films belong to the horror genre, and it continues to produce memorable and challenging work. I just have a massive problem with the 'hardcore' horror sub-genre and its male fanbase, and find the crossover of the words 'hardcore' and gonzo' between horror and porn highly significant. Your portrait of the Gorehound journalists in Ancient Images continues to strike me as a painfully accurate portrait of a prominent element in horror film fandom, though it's not as dominant as it was in the 1980s. I remember reading an article in some journal, possibly Shock XPress, that described those who prefer restraint and subtelty in horror films as 'limp-dick wankers'. The same writer went on to rhapsodise about the glory of 'the gore finale, the big chow down'. I continue to find this mentality within horror film fandom ugly and infantile, and can't help recognising its dependence on a positive emotional response to images of torture and mutilation. It remains the case that much in the horror film genre sickens and embarrasses me. In the late 1980s there was a concerted attempt within horror fandom to drive the same mentality into writing, and I can't tell you how relieved I am that that movement did not succeed. The truly talented writers associated with 'splatterpunk', including Lansdale and Schow, have gone on producing fine work, and all the juvenile torture merchants have sunk back into their circle-jerk basements. Like 'hardcore' porn, 'hardcore' horror depends entirely on its ability to deliver the right kind of 'action' to turn on its target audience. But at least porn is honest about itself and doesn't claim to be brave in its goals. | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 2.24.7.226 |
'A haunting thought is that often we'll never know if our hardships brought brought us closer towards or further from our potential, because we're each an unrepeatable experiment.' Indeed, but that's also good. This is neither a repeat nor a rough draft. This is the real thing. Bring it on! | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 2.24.38.42 |
Apologies for typos in the above bijou rantette. It was late and I should have been sleeping... | ||
| Ramsey Campbell (Ramsey) Username: Ramsey Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 92.8.22.104 |
Well, fair enough, Joel - I agree with all that, basically. I do think that this kind of tendency in horror tends to provoke a creative reaction that leads to greater subtlety (for instance, I think Gawsworth's New Tales of Horror may have been meant as a riposte to the Not at Night books). | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.131.110.92 |
In nature, fear and stress are crucial for survival. Let your guard drop and you might die. I think reading horror and suffering by proxy are our ways of keeping that instinct alive - it is a drug, and we do need it, or did. And you don't need to be unhappy to seek out that thrill - just normal. I also think damage can result in having lost limbs being replaced by bionic ones. My son told me about this. So much stuff in nature applies to us, and is pretty simple. | ||
| Protodroid (Protodroid) Username: Protodroid Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 109.79.14.103 |
"I think reading horror and suffering by proxy are our ways of keeping that instinct alive" This applies to work which takes the point of view of the victim. | ||
| Weber (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 109.150.142.245 |
Not necessarily. If a story from the point of view of the perpetrator is well enough written we feel the victim's horror. I like to think that even I managed that trick in my story in MBFG. Having said that, one girl at work who read that story in the original form responded with "That was sweet, He was willing to die for her" and failed to see that any of his behaviour was abnormal. Which I found rather scary . |