Postby ljacone » Thu Aug 05, 2010 10:57 am
I'll never watch this, I am sure. I'm a huge Eurohorror gorehound but I'd rather watch a giallo or a greasy 70s movie than a lot of the modern stuff. I guess because my first Italian director was Argento I tend to like style over shock. Of course I also love Fulci so go figure on that, although he had style to spare too. The mixture of sex and violence automatically makes it more perverse and nasty than its compatriots. It's like Maniac and New York Ripper -- with the use of highly sexualized violence those movies tend to have more criticism heaped on them than others from around the same time frame. (Is NY Ripper, really, any worse than, say, The Prowler? I'd say no EXCEPT for the context of the violence.)
The idea of this hideous film being allegorical for life in Serbia is a novel take. Eastern Europe has more strife and cause for depression than just about anywhere else in the world historically, so as an allegory it reads. I don't know that I necessarily buy it as the primary cinematic motivation, though. Interesting excerpt from IFC's contrary review: ""Movies can use transgressive topics and imagery toward great artistic resonance. They can also just use them for pure shock/novelty/boundary-pushing, which is where I'd group Serbian Film. That it comes from a country that's spent decades deep in violent conflict, civil unrest, corruption and ethnic tensions makes it tempting to read more into the film than I think it actually offers—ultimately, it has as much to say about its country of origin as Hostel does about America, which is a little, but nothing on the scale its title suggests."
I don't like the term "torture porn" especially as applied to the Saw series. I don't like using the term "*blank* porn" for anything except actual, you know, porn. This film actually earns the title I guess! But the other survival horror movies out there, nah, they don't deserve that label. They're just the modern take of old school gore-exploitation movies of the 70s and 80s. Is Saw and its ilk really all that different from Bloodfeast when you get right down to it? Sure maybe the effects are a lot better but in the end the point is to be gore-exploitation. (Hostel 2 is a lot better than Hostel, by the way. It also recaps the entire first movie in the first 10 minutes so you don't even need to watch Hostel.) The label of "torture porn" is used way too much as a perjorative by anti-horror critics and crybabies, so I push back against it.
Cannibal Holocaust will mess you up, man! Nasty nasty movie. I always liked the anecdote about Deodato having to go into court in Italy and demonstrate the effect of the girl on the pole to answer charges of making snuff. Not one which you want to throw in the DVD player every weekend or somethig but definitely a classic of cruelty.
Regarding banning, eh, I don't like banning of movies for content save something like kiddie porn or whatnot. There's a reason why we have ratings and parents. If you don't know what your kids are watching then shame on you. Yeah yeah, kids are smart and can find stuff on the Internet, well, if you took a bigger interest in your kids' lives you might be able to talk about why something like this might be inappropriate.
I'm not one for mondo, nor real life stuff like you normally see on the Internet. A movie is one thing because (outside of pick up shots of mondo inserted into the various cannibal/jungle films like you mentioned) you know that no matter how nasty it is, it's Movie Magic (tm). I have no interest in seeing actual human or animal suffering.
Sorry this post is so scattered... I am just glad to have a thread to talk about horror movies and such and with my love of crap cinema this sounds like a good podcast for me. Awesome show dudes... we'll have to get together at some point and review something!
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