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DID SOMEONE MENTION AUGUST UNDERGROUND? A long, long time ago I wrote a long post in this thread defending why AU are good films, but then again it's all opinion isn't it. I mean, I've got all 3 on DVD signed by Fred Vogel. The only film of his that's a true piece of poo poo is Murder-Set-Pieces. People always bash on AU as being a piece of poo poo showcasing effects. I don't think anyone is denying that the effects are very good, and they definitely are. In my opinion, the film actually has some sort of purpose to it. A lot of films try to delve into the deep depths of the human psyche via character exploration and development, and show how killers think and what they do. An excellent example would be Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer. This isn't the case with August Underground. The characteres are pieces of poo poo, they have no redeeming values and are just pretty much vile scum. There's no exploration of their thought process or why they do what they do or how they became who they are. But to me, that's the scary part of the films. By understanding the origins of a serial killer, we can look into, and dare I say even sympathize with the character. AU strips that away, we know nothing of these people or why they do the terrible things they do in the movies. This could be anyone, and the fact that you can meet some random person on the street who could be doing some vile AU-style act and never know. The sheer extremity of the film speaks for itself. I'm not going to say that AU has any redeeming purpose to it's debauchery, other than perhaps a SFX showcase. As an extreme cinema fan and gore-hound, I dug it but for people who don't like that I can understand why the film comes off as a complete piece of trash.
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Aug 5, 2014 04:38
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What's Fred Vogel like
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Aug 5, 2014 04:53
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Hat Thoughts posted:What's Fred Vogel like Hi likely got the DVDs from Toe Tag's website, where you can pay a bit extra to have them signed by Vogel before shipping. Kvlt! posted:DID SOMEONE MENTION AUGUST UNDERGROUND? I agree with all those points, and I actually do kind of appreciate the movies on that level. But the reason I think they're bad is mostly due to how boring the filler scenes are. Model railroad exhibits, slaughterhouse tours, girls puking on each other for ten minutes, etc. And the movies are composed mostly of these scenes. Not to mention how utterly obnoxious the characters are. The forced giddy laughter from the cameraman in the first film, for example, is just insufferable.
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Aug 5, 2014 04:58
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weekly font posted:So I'm about to ask like the exact opposite question. Going back to the 80's, did you ever see the horror-comedy House? For a different vibe, Wolfen is not bad, but got lost because it came out roughly the same time as The Howling and American Werewolf in London (and I'm sure you've seen the latter two already).
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Aug 5, 2014 05:09
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The signed DVDs I got online, I met Vogel very briefly separately. I didn't talk to him much, more just shook his hand and said I'm a huge fan but he was very nice to me. Though to be fair, my opinions on Vogel/AU are probably very skewed considering I've probably given Toetag the most business out of anyone. Kvlt! fucked around with this message at 06:06 on Aug 5, 2014 |
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Aug 5, 2014 06:04
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Which is the one where they force people to fart on each others heads at gunpoint?
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Aug 5, 2014 06:08
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Dissapointed Owl posted:Which is the one where they force people to fart on each others heads at gunpoint? Mordum
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Aug 5, 2014 06:21
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Kvlt! posted:Mordum Heh, more like... more-dumb. 
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Aug 5, 2014 08:46
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Dissapointed Owl posted:Which is the one where they force people to fart on each others heads at gunpoint? I was totally not expecting this post.
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Aug 5, 2014 14:29
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Kvlt! posted:The signed DVDs I got online, I met Vogel very briefly separately. I didn't talk to him much, more just shook his hand and said I'm a huge fan but he was very nice to me. Don't be shy now.
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Aug 5, 2014 15:05
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Dissapointed Owl posted:Which is the one where they force people to fart on each others heads at gunpoint? Yeah, I was considering watching this but now I can see it's just as loving dumb as I thought previously. I'll pass. But now I'm curious...what do you guys consider actually worthwhile in the so-called torture porn genre? Does Martyrs count? Does Last House on the Left?
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Aug 5, 2014 15:43
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Oliver Reed posted:But now I'm curious...what do you guys consider actually worthwhile in the so-called torture porn genre? Does Martyrs count? Does Last House on the Left? Last House on the Left and The Hills Have Eyes I'd say would fall under proto-torture porn and they're both worthwhile (to different extents; LHOL is decent and historically important, but THHE is loving awesome). I think Wolf Creek is a legitimately good movie. Big Bad Wolves was pretty good.
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Aug 5, 2014 15:46
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Sire Oblivion posted:[Hitcher] owns but according to the thread you shouldn't watch anything else in the series. The original film does it all and better. I kind of liked the remake, if only because I enjoy Sean Bean being a badass. Which is quite bad when I think about it, because Rutger Hauer wasn't really a badass so the remake kind of missed the point.
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Aug 5, 2014 15:51
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Oliver Reed posted:
I don't really believe in using "torture porn" as the name of an actual genre. I think of it more as an insult to a film that doesn't really have much going on other than people being tortured(i.e. a lovely movie). I only think of a movie as torture porn if it didn't do anything else, and was therefore boring. Stuff like The Hills Have Eyes, Last House on the Left, Martyrs, and even Hostel are not torture porn to me because they are trying to tell a story that goes beyond the torture and gore.
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Aug 5, 2014 16:41
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Uncle Boogeyman posted:I think Wolf Creek is a legitimately good movie. The first one was a great thriller, I'm ambivalent about the sequel though. I mean it's not "bad", but it's not particularly good. It just feels really mediocre and unnecessary, and the only positive thing I can say about it is that John Jarratt is just as good in it as he was in the first. I kind of want the franchise to continue just for his sake, but I also kind of want it to die because I get the feeling it's going to keep getting worse.
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Aug 5, 2014 16:58
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I'm really not a fan of Wolf Creek at all. I thought there were plenty of other mediocre horror films coming out around that time that were at least more entertaining. House of Wax for example came out the same year. Certainly no classic, but its a fun ride which is more than I can say for Wolf Creek which at its best is mean spirited, and at its worst is simply boring as hell.
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Aug 5, 2014 17:06
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I feel weird reading this thread because I'm apparently some kind of freak.  You're Next? Junk. VHS? Horrible. Detention? Jesus christ, that movie blew. I honestly can't think of a single horror movie I enjoyed since Conjuring. I'm purposely not counting Under the Skin as it skews more sci-fi. I think I'm getting old.  I enjoyed Full Moon movies a lot back in the day
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Aug 5, 2014 17:16
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Torture Porn isn't a term I use, it makes absolutely 0 sense. Extreme cinema is really a better term. Torture porn is the type of poo poo you find in the BDSM section of pornhub, extreme cinema are films like AU, Hostel, etc.
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Aug 5, 2014 17:18
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Agreed. "Torture porn" is a pejorative, reductive term used by people who don't care for extreme horror. Worse, it's often used to negatively characterize the people who do enjoy it. If you don't like gory violent movies, don't watch them, but don't act like you're above me because I do.
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Aug 5, 2014 17:37
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caiman posted:Agreed. "Torture porn" is a pejorative, reductive term used by people who don't care for extreme horror. Worse, it's often used to negatively characterize the people who do enjoy it. If you don't like gory violent movies, don't watch them, but don't act like you're above me because I do. Couldn't have said it better myself.
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Aug 5, 2014 17:50
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I think I've said this before, but the August Underground movies seem more like bizarre performance art than horror movies - no one seems to be really doing much of anything but crudely mimicking murder scenes in bad lighting. They feel like the intermission entertainment at a punk show in the basement of a crust house.
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Aug 5, 2014 18:36
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I used to feel a way about "torture porn" as a term but at this point it's a codified genre whether you want it to be or not so, y'know, deal with it.
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Aug 5, 2014 18:40
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Uncle Boogeyman posted:I used to feel a way about "torture porn" as a term but at this point it's a codified genre whether you want it to be or not so, y'know, deal with it. Nah. If we define it as a movie where people get tortured, than basically every horror movie becomes "torture porn". Take the Saw movies for example. The first Saw movie wasn't "torture porn" at all, it was actually a very well done horror thriller. Hell, very few people actually even get TORTURED in the Saw movies, just trapped. Now, can we call something like Hostel a torture movie? Sure, torture is a big part of it. But the porn part is what demeans it. It's not for us to jack off to (I mean, unless that's what your into but that ain't the purpose of the movie), the purpose of the movie is just like any other horror movie: to loving scare you.
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Aug 5, 2014 18:45
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I think a useful distinction that is highlighted by the term torture porn is that between suffering and, you know, torture. Torture means there is one guy going to work over another guy with a screwdriver, that's pretty specific and hardly applicable to all horror movies. I wouldn't even necessarily say Jason or the like really torture people, they just kill them. Very thoroughly.
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Aug 5, 2014 18:51
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The reason I don't accept it as an actual genre is because I feel its a term that was coined by people who don't actually like horror movies, and probably haven't seen very many of them. You have to be at least a little bit knowledgeable about the horror genre to be able to understand why is arbitrary to lump every movie with torture in it into the same category. Its hard to explain to someone who doesn't watch horror that sometimes torture has a purpose in the film and sometimes it doesn't.
Basebf555 fucked around with this message at 18:54 on Aug 5, 2014 |
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Aug 5, 2014 18:51
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I mean continue to dig your heels in the sand if you want, but the fact remains that someone says "torture porn" and we basically all know what they mean: Movies like Saw, Hostel, and the wave of films they influenced.
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Aug 5, 2014 18:53
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Uncle Boogeyman posted:I mean continue to dig your heels in the sand if you want, but the fact remains that someone says "torture porn" and we basically all know what they mean: Movies like Saw, Hostel, and the wave of films they influenced. Yeah, regardless of how much porn or torture are actually in Hostel and Saw, if you say that combination of words to someone they are now thinking of those two movies.
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Aug 5, 2014 19:09
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If I say the N word people know what I'm referring to too. Doesn't make it a good word.
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Aug 5, 2014 19:11
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caiman posted:If I say the N word people know what I'm referring to too. Doesn't make it a good word. Dope equivalency.
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Aug 5, 2014 19:17
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Uncle Boogeyman posted:Dope equivalency. It's an extreme example to make my point. It's equivalent logic. "People know what the word means, therefore it's a perfectly good word."
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Aug 5, 2014 19:30
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I don't have a problem if other people want to talk about torture porn as if its a real genre, I'm just not going to use it myself unless I'm trying to describe how lovely a movie is. If I'm calling a movie torture porn I'm saying that it sucked and was boring. Boring is not a genre.
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Aug 5, 2014 19:47
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Boring is a big church that accepts all comers.
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Aug 5, 2014 19:48
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caiman posted:If I say the N word people know what I'm referring to too. Doesn't make it a good word. This thread just took a turn for the classy! 
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Aug 5, 2014 19:49
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I have issues with it as a term myself; it's judgmental, yes, and it's not particularly descriptive either. But here's the thing: Subgenre's been around for 10+ years now. That genie's not going back in the bottle. You can get real ridiculous and start comparing it to a racial slur to try and get people to stop using the term, or you can accept that it's a thing now and analyze its place in the contemporary horror genre, which to me is far more edifying. Reminder that the term was first coined, IIRC, to describe Passion of the Christ.
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Aug 5, 2014 19:51
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Uncle Boogeyman posted:You can get real ridiculous and start comparing it to a racial slur NOT what I was doing. At least not what I meant to do. I was attempting to point out flawed logic.
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Aug 5, 2014 19:57
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Uncle Boogeyman posted:
I'm not so sure about that. I remember it first after Saw was so successful, then it really solidified itself as a known pop-culture term when Hostel came out the next year. Hostel got a lot of attention when it was released, and a lot of it was negative. The term was used to denigrate the movie and for journalists to write stories about how hosed up this generation of young people are.
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Aug 5, 2014 20:01
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Lots of names for genres and movements were coined as pejoratives by their opponents, from yankee to impressionism. Suck it up.
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Aug 5, 2014 20:03
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Basebf555 posted:I'm not so sure about that. I remember it first after Saw was so successful, then it really solidified itself as a known pop-culture term when Hostel came out the next year. Hostel got a lot of attention when it was released, and a lot of it was negative. The term was used to denigrate the movie and for journalists to write stories about how hosed up this generation of young people are. This is the article I had in mind, which is often cited as coining or at least popularizing the term. I was wrong that the term was created to refer to Passion of the Christ, but it is mentioned as one of the founding texts, along with Hostel, Saw, The Devil's Rejects, and Wolf Creek.
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Aug 5, 2014 20:06
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penismightier posted:Lots of names for genres and movements were coined as pejoratives by their opponents, from yankee to impressionism. Suck it up. Maybe you're right. It took me a while to embrace "Obamacare" too, but I came around. So speaking of extreme hor... er torture porn, I watched Frontiers and was disappointed. It was what I would imagine a French Extremity film would look like if it were made by a big Hollywood studio. Overstylized and full of every TCM-inspired cliche out there. The thing that makes a lot of the French horror movies so effective is their raw nature. But here the jumpy, flashy editing stripped the violence of any impact it may have had. It left me overstuffed and bored to tears.
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Aug 5, 2014 21:31
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caiman posted:Maybe you're right. It took me a while to embrace "Obamacare" too, but I came around. Watch Martyrs, it's the best French extreme horror if you want some more of that.
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Aug 5, 2014 21:55
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