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acephalousuniverse posted:Yeah people are idiots/brain-broken for caring more about the dog than the teenagers but it's an extremely throwaway thing at the very end of the short and hardly qualifies the thing as a "morality play." You're right. The conscious decision to show the dog dying for ten seconds was a throwaway thing. This whole short is just a bunch of frivolous bullshit.
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May 19, 2014 05:17
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I don't really like horror movies. I really don't. The genre is so much more hit-or-miss than others and once something works, it's promptly run into the ground. That said, V/H/S/2 and V/H/S to a lesser extent really click for me. I enjoyed the gently caress out of Safe Haven. Eking out the bits and pieces fed to you about what the cult actually believes and the metaphysics of the poo poo that's happening was the most fun I've had thinking about a short film. Actually V/H/S/2 in general has this quality. The frame narrative is completely forgettable, while the shorts are either doing interesting things or tease surprising depth behind rather dark and intense events that rarely resort to the horror tropes that make me hate the genre. Jump scares and the like. Alien Abduction was some kind of genre of Stress-based horror that I've never experienced before, and zombies for being as played out as they are, were handled in an interesting way in A Ride In The Park. Clinical Trials, again, had me going crazy trying to piece together the metaphysics behind what was happening as poo poo was going down. I think it might be the weakest of the bunch but it's still very interesting. So, I guess what's grabbing me really aren't the more traditional horror elements, it's more about the mystery these shorts offered and the more lovecraftian elements presented. V/H/S doesn't do this so much. The succubus short was interesting for teasing some of those same elements. I suppose Second Honeymoon was cool for loving with my expectations but it didn't stand up to repeat viewings for me. I don't consider the rest of the first anthology very memorable. All the same, I'm excited to see what they do for VHS3.
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May 19, 2014 05:17
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Magic Hate Ball posted:You're right. The conscious decision to show the dog dying for ten seconds was a throwaway thing. This whole short is just a bunch of frivolous bullshit. Yes, I agree. I actually like it more than most of the other shorts but yeah, it is an entirely frivolous piece of cartoonish entertainment and in no way qualifies as a "morality play" because of a ten second shot of a dog dying at the end. SMG wannabe people using the "  yeah dude, Transformers is *just* a movie based on a toy line with no deep metaphysical meaning at all, they spent all this money just to entertain people, suuuuure" will never stop being funny.
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May 19, 2014 05:20
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Magic Hate Ball posted:Well, look, what do you feel when the teenagers are being slaughtered? What do you feel when the dog is dying? Most people are probably not going to give much thought to the teenagers. The teenagers are meat. It's why we enjoy slasher films, we get to watch other people die and it's fun. We don't feel for them. In this way, our reaction is a judgement. To care more for the dog is to decide that the teenagers are more deserving of their deaths. So, why do we care more for the dog? Why do we condemn the teenagers as "shitheads"? It's like a little morality play, and I really appreciate that. Except with found footage, you don't want the people to die, because the people are you. You are the camera. That's what makes found footage scary. You imagine the situation to be real, rather than something voyeuristic. I suppose you definitely could view found footage that way(it is designed to pretty much that), but personally I can't. Even if I hate every character in the film, there is a large part of me that throws myself into it. I am one with the characters. So seeing a character die was sad because of the way I watch it. (also, I would totally rescue my dog if aliens were trying to kill us).
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May 19, 2014 06:18
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I know we've all seen the trailer, but gently caress this gives me the chills. I'm not as stoked for Viral as a whole as the other V/H/S films though, with the focus on invisible-phantom bullshit in the trailer (which was kind of low content to begin with). The Meat Dimension fucked around with this message at 06:49 on May 19, 2014 |
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May 19, 2014 06:32
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acephalousuniverse posted:No actually this is the simplification. "Don't be mean to women because they are crazy and evil and will murder you for it" is the source of every witch/succubus type trope in human history. Except that's not it at all. The succubus one is pretty clearly about the male gaze considering you are literally the eyes of the main character, and the movie gets uncomfortable when the succubus starts objectifying the main character aka you.
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May 19, 2014 08:30
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I'm actually glad I'm not feeling Viral as much from the trailers, especially compared to V/H/S/2. I set my expectations for 2 far too high, and nothing really stood out on second viewings except for some of the teenager dialogue in SPAA. And Jonny Angel is spot on with They Come to Get Us; that closed out the first V/H/S with such a thrashy energy, and their bit in 2 was quite a disappointment in comparison. Reining in my expectations will likely benefit me as a viewer, for sure. Who was it in the last thread that pointed out the perspective in SPAA implying that the short was explicitly about the dog? The whole series is "last moments on tape", so us sticking with the dog the whole time (including its death) doesn't just have a point, it's the entire point. Doesn't horror illuminate our boundaries? Break beyond them?
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May 19, 2014 16:52
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acephalousuniverse posted:Oh good, a guy from ABCs of Death is doing a short in this one. Since all the shorts in the first VHS are about crazy and/or evil women, and most of the shorts in ABCs of Death are about women making GBS threads, farting, or otherwise using the toilet, maybe his part will combine the two themes and we'll have a demon succubus pooping for 15 minutes in between tedious frame segments. I'm actually kind of curious if you watched ABCs of Death because there were exactly two shorts in it that were as you described, and one that had a toilet in it but wasn't really about bodily functions (other than being a pile of poo poo  ). And none of the above were by the guy who got tapped for VHS Viral.Looking it up, he actually made D is for Dogfight which was dope as gently caress so yeah I don't really see where your issue lies? e: That said, though, I've tried really hard to see the "good" gender politics in the original, and it still sounds like using Death of the Author to justify liking something that's  as gently caress. Yeah, the dudes do bad poo poo, but the shorts downplay the hell out of it and massively play up the evil-ness of the women; I suppose you could chalk that up to the point of view, but it's inarguable that the POV informs something's themes as much as everything else.I did like the movie, but seriously, holy poo poo people, you're allowed to like problematic things. You don't have to SMG it to justify not being morally outraged by it. SALT CURES HAM fucked around with this message at 20:45 on May 19, 2014 |
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May 19, 2014 20:31
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I love how polarizing these films are. One thing I especially enjoy though is how many of the segments get better as you analyze them further (Tuesday the 17th's interpretation in the VHS1 thread is brilliant). I also really like the creativity in using new found footage gimmicks to explain why they're filming - like the fully functional Nanny-Cam costume, the camera glasses, and the GoPro. Some thematic interpretations I've had and others have discussed: V/H/S 1's framing story sets the theme of the overall film as a meditation on the male gaze. The assault on the woman and its repetition at the end frames the idea that found footage is not only voyeuristic, but that horror in general is skewed toward male viewers and female exploitation, and what that means in cinema. You actually kind of root for the succubus against the douchebros as you're seeing it through their eyes. Second Honeymoon subverts that by the reveal that it's not a "male" gaze at all. Tuesday the 17th is less tied to this theme, but it's a compressed slasher and therefore you still get your final girl and your dudes trying to get laid out in the woods, which apparently summons the villain because if I'm interpreting it right the glitch killer is literally "every horror movie". The alien one drives home the voyeurism aspect, since although the guy's being manipulated you can tell he's also enjoying it because tittays. Finally, I find it interesting that the haunted house one actually punishes the men for doing the right thing, but perhaps that's the point - they're the brave knights coming to the rescue of the damsel who doesn't need to be rescued; it's cautionary. But the segments mostly either focus on or actively subvert tropes of voyeuristic men as a common theme. V/H/S/2 starts off brilliantly: You see the voyeurism titty shot through the window and think it's following the same theme as the first, but it quickly subverts that. The framing story is better and you get the sense that they're actually going somewhere with this, and you get to see the woman PI disgusted by the assault from the first one. Right there, those two scenes tell you this film is about something different. The overall theme is less obvious, but I think the dog in the alien segment drives it home: While you wanted to see people die and gets what's coming to them in the first one, in this one nobody who dies really deserves it. A girl gets drowned by her molesty ghost uncle and the guy gets killed by circumstances surrounding an accident. Some cyclists and people holding a child's birthday party get killed. Children in a cult and the filmmakers visiting them get killed. Children get abducted/killed by aliens. Even the PIs who are just trying to find a missing person get killed. While the first was exploitative on purpose, this one wants you to feel bad for wanting to see horrible deaths. There's way more humanity in the second one, but it's really telling that the only death in the whole film that bothers people is the dog. Though what's funny to me is that the dog is actually owned by the director of that segment, who loves it more than any moviegoer ever could. Then the very last shot in VHS2 - the Jackass-like thumbs up - is basically saying that you've been on the villain's side this whole time because you wanted to see all this happen. I could be off on some of this, but it makes sense to me. Although I like some segments less than others, I don't dislike any of them and I think a lot of them are really brilliant ideas that don't need more than an anthology short. So I'm really looking forward to the third one, and whatever theme can be extrapolated from it - presumably it's the idea that people will do anything for fame. I'm particularly looking forward to the segments from the directors of Resolution and Timecrimes. sticklefifer fucked around with this message at 21:41 on May 19, 2014 |
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May 19, 2014 21:36
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SALT CURES HAM posted:I'm actually kind of curious if you watched ABCs of Death because there were exactly two shorts in it that were as you described, and one that had a toilet in it but wasn't really about bodily functions (other than being a pile of poo poo There's the farts one, the miscarriage one, and the living poo poo one. I guess the movie overall was so awful and mostly forgettable that recurring theme was the only thing that stuck out to me besides 9/11 boobs. Not an "issue" just hyperbole about a bad movie. The D is for Dogfight short wasn't too bad though I guess now that I remember it. quote:I did like the movie, but seriously, holy poo poo people, you're allowed to like problematic things. You don't have to SMG it to justify not being morally outraged by it. This is mostly my point too. It's fine to be entertained by stuff on a basic level, even if it's skeevy, and not have to Theorize why it's good. Most of the stuff I post about in the horror thread I wouldn't really defend on a political level.
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May 19, 2014 22:20
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acephalousuniverse posted:There's the farts one, the miscarriage one, and the living poo poo one. I guess the movie overall was so awful and mostly forgettable that recurring theme was the only thing that stuck out to me besides 9/11 boobs. That's... 3 out of 26. And the miscarriage one is only tangentially related to that theme (it's the one that I was referring to as a pile of poo poo). I honestly just feel really weird looking at ABCs of Death as a whole rather than just taking the shorts on their own individual terms, because not only do they vary wildly in quality (M is for Miscarriage sucks out loud, but D is for Dogfight is pretty much the best short film I've seen in quite a while and Y is for Youngbuck isn't far behind) but they also don't really have anything in common other than the general theme of death. SALT CURES HAM fucked around with this message at 22:23 on May 19, 2014 |
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May 19, 2014 22:21
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Yes dude. It was a hyperbolic joke. Chill out.
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May 19, 2014 22:23
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acephalousuniverse posted:This is mostly my point too. It's fine to be entertained by stuff on a basic level, even if it's skeevy, and not have to Theorize why it's good. Most of the stuff I post about in the horror thread I wouldn't really defend on a political level. The reason I like the first a lot is because of that theme running throughout, it has four different stories and a frame story that tell an overall story about these kinds of guys and the women they attract/are attracted to. I was entertained on a "basic level" as well as this other level that makes that movie greater than the sum of its parts.
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May 19, 2014 22:26
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The last short in the first movie is literally saying "don't try to help women out of patriarchal violent situations because those situations are actually necessary because women really are evil and if you try to help them they'll just turn on you." Second Honeymoon is saying "don't be mean to your wife because she'll turn into a dyke and kill you." The succubus one is saying "don't be a pervy guy because women are crazy and will kill you." VHS 2 features a scene where a guy bashes a woman's brains out while calling her a bitch, and also a scene where a girl arbitrarily has to get naked and gently caress a random guy to scare a ghost away. It is entirely bog-standard horror movie sexual politics that have existed since before slasher movies were a thing. So yeah, saying the movie is "about" the male gaze rather than just an extremely obvious example of it is pretty much coming up with a post-hoc TROPE SUBVERTED: Male Gaze rationalization for why the movie is Smart in addition to entertaining.
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May 19, 2014 22:42
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Why would you watch Second Honeymoon as a moral lesson rather than a little character piece about a passive-aggressive married couple?
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May 19, 2014 22:46
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HUNDU THE BEAST GOD posted:Why would you watch Second Honeymoon as a moral lesson rather than a little character piece about a passive-aggressive married couple? So the shorts that you can justify as being thematic and generalizably progressive are thematic and progressive but the ones you can't figure out a reason they're Subversive are just character pieces that don't mean anything. Ok.
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May 19, 2014 22:49
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I do think it "means something", I just you're bringing something different to it than I am, because I never get the impression she "turns into a dyke because he was mean to her". The casting of Joe Swanberg also prevents me from immediately identifying with the dude.
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May 19, 2014 22:52
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Could be because of the milquetoast questions but the Second Honeymoon director doesn't say anything about subversive images or anything other than "creepy road trip movie" http://www.complex.com/pop-culture/2012/10/vhs-horror-movie-anthology-interviews-backstory/second-honeymoon I for one, however still think it fits into the general theme that I applied to it.
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May 19, 2014 23:48
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HUNDU THE BEAST GOD posted:I do think it "means something", I just you're bringing something different to it than I am, because I never get the impression she "turns into a dyke because he was mean to her". The casting of Joe Swanberg also prevents me from immediately identifying with the dude. I mean, the guy doesn't come off as a great guy, but the woman comes off waaaay worse because of how extreme the reaction to his comparatively mild actions is. It's really framed like we're supposed to sympathize with him, especially in the murder scene itself.
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May 19, 2014 23:59
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To me, what makes V/H/S feminist is that the violent women are not rooted in reality. The crazy lesbians, possessed girl, and succubus are not real things. A bunch of guys sexually assaulting a woman is. That's why the last shot of the film is the woman getting her top ripped off because it remains one of the most disturbing aspects of the film because it is real. It's not saying that men should be nice to women because they might turn out to be crazy killers or monsters. It's saying male fears of women--while making decent surface level horror--are ultimately irrational fears. Your wife probably isn't a bisexual serial killer and you're probably not going to be killed by a succubus. A bunch of dudes running up to and utterly humiliating you in a matter of seconds is a real fear for women. And that's incredibly hosed up. To make a movie in which women are terrifying to men, you have to be absurd and fantastical. To make a movie in which men are terrifying to women, you just have to reenact something that has happened numerous times today. The movie is also heavily about how the camera can be used as a tool of assault. The guys in the first short never consider physically raping a girl. When one girl passes out, they don't even consider the idea of rape. But none of them realize that secretly videotaping someone is still sexual assault. The theme comes up in Second Honeymoon with the husband videotaping his wife against her wishes, making the camera a phallus that is only taken away from him when he's in danger of being assaulted. It returns in The Sick Thing... which actually shows an abusive relationship which despite its absurdity rings a bit truer. Then we have Tuesday the 17th in which the protagonists finds herself learning that she basically exists in an 80s slasher. She tries to take control via found footage, but her world is designed around her assaulter. But in short, no, the film is not promoting the fears it often uses. It utilizes them as decent horror, but calls them out as illegitimate. Timeless Appeal fucked around with this message at 03:14 on May 21, 2014 |
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May 20, 2014 00:25
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Timeless Appeal posted:To me, what makes V/H/S feminist is that the violent women are not rooted in reality. The crazy lesbians, possessed girl, and succubus are not real things. A bunch of guys sexually assaulting a woman is. That's why the last shot of the film is the woman getting her top ripped off because it remains one of the most disturbing aspects of the film because it is real. It's not saying that men should be nice to women because they might turn out to be crazy killers or monsters. It's saying male fears of women--while making decent level surface horror--are ultimately irrational fears. Your wife probably isn't a bisexual serial killer and you're probably not going to be killed by a succubus. A bunch of dudes running up to and utterly humiliating you in a matter of seconds is a real fear for women. And that's incredibly hosed up. To make a movie in which women are terrifying to men, you have to be absurd and fantastical. To make a movie in which men are terrifying to women, you just have to reenact something that has happened numerous times today. "Beep boop, thing not real therefore thing cannot be used to otherize people" is a really dumb argument. If that were the case, Yellow Peril and the equivocation of gays with pedophiles wouldn't be harmful things, and WELP. I agree that the frame story is genuinely feminist, but the frame story is really crowded out by the shorts' gender politics, which (Sick Thing... aside) are unbelievably hosed up in this regard.
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May 20, 2014 00:58
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SALT CURES HAM posted:"Beep boop, thing not real therefore thing cannot be used to otherize people" is a really dumb argument. If that were the case, Yellow Peril and the equivocation of gays with pedophiles wouldn't be harmful things, and WELP. Reading through interviews with the directors leads me to believe there is literally nothing feminist about the VHS movies. Especially the first one.
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May 20, 2014 01:12
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SALT CURES HAM posted:"Beep boop, thing not real therefore thing cannot be used to otherize people" is a really dumb argument. If that were the case, Yellow Peril and the equivocation of gays with pedophiles wouldn't be harmful things, and WELP.
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May 20, 2014 01:17
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Timeless Appeal posted:Listen, I'm willing to disagree on this, but I feel like you're really simplifying my argument. I'm saying that the made up stuff is feminist because of what it's being juxtaposed with. But yes, you're right that it still otherizes. I mean, I see your point (and in fact that's why I agreed that the frame story was legitimately feminist), but it's hard to forget that the shorts were all more-or-less made in a vacuum once you learn that tidbit.
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May 20, 2014 01:24
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Gropiemon posted:Reading through interviews with the directors leads me to believe there is literally nothing feminist about the VHS movies. Especially the first one. A film doesn't have to be deliberately making a feminist statement in order to be feminist. \/\/\/  We aren't using it as an insult, douche.
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May 20, 2014 01:42
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so what if it's feminist? I couldn't care less and really neither should anyone else. If the segments are good, who cares who it might offend. It's horror. I'd rather a movie be good than to pander to some braless, hairy armpit.
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May 20, 2014 02:22
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SALT CURES HAM posted:I mean, I see your point (and in fact that's why I agreed that the frame story was legitimately feminist), but it's hard to forget that the shorts were all more-or-less made in a vacuum once you learn that tidbit. Maybe, but they aren't presented in a vacuum, they're presented together, and thus are generally going to be interpreted as such. The people who made them may not be feminist - they may be anti-feminist! - but the work they made may still be feminist as presented, depending on how you choose to interpret it. quote:I'd rather a movie be good than to pander to some braless, hairy armpit. Oh you're cute. 
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May 20, 2014 02:34
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The politics of the first film are basically "sexual attraction to women equals death". Maybe that's a step forward from "sex equals death", but I'm not sure.
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May 20, 2014 02:38
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Explosivo12 posted:so what if it's feminist? I couldn't care less and really neither should anyone else. If the segments are good, who cares who it might offend. It's horror. I'd rather a movie be good than to pander to some braless, hairy armpit. Go gently caress yourself. Timeless Appeal posted:But in short, no, the film is not promoting the fears it often uses. It utilizes them as decent horror, but calls them out as illegitimate. It doesn't "call them out as illegitimate" since they are all entirely legitimate in the context of the movie. With the exception of the aliens one, all the women in the movie *are* actually murderous hellspawn out to harm men. The fact that the most misogynist short (the haunted house one) comes last basically makes the point "yeah all the rest of these men were perverts who got what they deserved, but you shouldn't try to help women either because they just hate men even if they didn't do anything." Alien is a feminist horror film because it intentionally uses metaphorical rape and violation to make the men in the audience feel uncomfortable in ways that only women usually feel. It deliberately tries to increase empathy with women. VHS does exactly the opposite in the most cliched way possible in its genre.
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May 20, 2014 03:09
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Man, how'd we even get on feminism.Gropiemon posted:Could be because of the milquetoast questions but the Second Honeymoon director doesn't say anything about subversive images or anything other than "creepy road trip movie" http://www.complex.com/pop-culture/2012/10/vhs-horror-movie-anthology-interviews-backstory/second-honeymoon quote:For you, was the idea was less about it being this subversion of found-footage and more about getting to work with friends on a road trip film? Ti West could be an idiot and that's cool, I like when idiots make good movies on accident. But I find it interesting that his aggressive commitment to this kind of dry documentary style makes the short much more interesting because it's about what you bring to it. The long shot out on the canyon is just footage from a road trip but since the wife is holding the camera, not interacting with her husband, I'm imagining that she's wondering if she could get away with pushing him off the ledge, or at the very least hoping he'll fall. That kind of weird detail in a horror movie is something I appreciate. Whoever the camera is pointed at feels interrogated and it brings out all this gross, passive aggressive energy. It's not about justifying who's right and who's wrong (who'd want to take sides in a bickering married couple's argument anyway) so when a third person picks up the camera, it's nevertheless a violation. Timeless Appeal posted:The movie is also heavily about how the camera can be used as a tool of assault. The guys in the first short never consider physically raping a girl. When one girl passes out, they don't even consider the idea of rape. But none of them realize that secretly videotaping someone is still sexual assault. The theme comes up in Second Honeymoon with the husband videotaping his wife against her wishes, making the camera a phallus that is only taken away from him when he's in danger of being assaulted. Yeah, exactly. Even if you don't extend it to "phallus", a lot of what all of these shorts come down to is "consent", as seen best in "The Sick Thing..." What happens in that short doesn't make a lick of sense (and has the most unsettling thing in the film when the boyfriend just enters the room to do something to Emily), but the whole idea of it is set up so well that I don't mind. The casting of Emily as this confused, dependent woman-child makes total sense in the context of covert manipulation/abuse and her subservience to this dude who just nonchalantly does whatever he wants with her. It's a good metaphor for an immature person having an Internet Boyfriend.
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May 20, 2014 04:49
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sbagliom posted:The politics of the first film are basically "sexual attraction to women equals death". Maybe that's a step forward from "sex equals death", but I'm not sure. That's not basically what it is at all. Saying that 'a woman killer' means 'women are evil' is a major interpretive failure. Why are they killing people? The point in Amateur Night is that the succubus has no idea how to socialize, so behaves in the way she believes she's expected to. She's internalized the bros' sexism, in other words, so it's their own attitudes turned back on them. They're getting what they wished for, monkey-paw style: their 'ideal woman'. Second Honeymoon is a totally different situation. The twist that Stephanie invited the killer in reveals that the threat with the switchblade was actually a display of trust and intimacy - an obvious contrast with the husband. They're in separate beds! Plus, there's the importance of the mask: transparent and painted with makeup, the makeup essentially hovers over her face. The contrast with the succubus is fairly obvious. The succubus is trying to 'act like a woman should' in order to just find a guy and be happy. The women in Second Honeymoon, instead, have no use for men and deliberately use femininity as a parodic mask. Tuesday the 17th is ridiculous because the protagonist has deliberately assembled a group of people who fit slasher-movie 'tropes' in the hope that her postmodern deconstruction will 'solve the movie' and give her closure - only to find that the killer defies understanding. Unlike the lesbian outlaws in Second Honeymoon, there's no transgressive charge to the killing in this one. She's frankly kinda dumb. Etc., etc.
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May 20, 2014 09:47
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There's something to be said for seeing the protagonist in Tuesday the 17th gorily ripped apart. She looked for closure, she looked to beat the system, and was disassembled in full view, for the enjoyment of the audience. Punishment for knowledge.
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May 20, 2014 10:47
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At the beginning of Amateur Night, when they meet Lilith, she's struggling to repeat their words back to them.
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May 20, 2014 13:31
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SuperMechagodzilla posted:Saying that 'a woman killer' means 'women are evil' is a major interpretive failure. Why are they killing people? HUNDU THE BEAST GOD posted:Even if you don't extend it to "phallus", a lot of what all of these shorts come down to is "consent", These are important points about the first movie. There's a running theme of consent, whether it's intentional or not. In 10/31/98, it doesn't matter that the guys try to help. The guys misinterpret the damsel in distress as someone they need to go back and help (despite just witnessing a bunch of crazy poo poo) because they're trying to be heroes for a woman who doesn't need their rescue. She would've destroyed her captors whether they showed up or not. She wouldn't have destroyed the party dudes if they left well enough alone. Much like my point about VHS2 and the dog driving home the point of "you don't care about innocent people dying, so here's something innocent you do care about dying because you're a sick gently caress for watching", the possessed woman drives home the point of "men don't get to decide what women want or deserve, so here's some men who don't deserve to die because you're a male gazing douchebro for watching this". The last shot of the final tape in both films punishes you at the end for loving horror by killing someone who doesn't deserve it. sticklefifer fucked around with this message at 16:48 on May 20, 2014 |
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May 20, 2014 16:46
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sticklefifer posted:In 10/31/98, it doesn't matter that the guys try to help. The guys misinterpret the damsel in distress as someone they need to go back and help (despite just witnessing a bunch of crazy poo poo) because they're trying to be heroes for a woman who doesn't need their rescue. She would've destroyed her captors whether they showed up or not. She wouldn't have destroyed the party dudes if they left well enough alone. Although the various shorts for V/H/S were made without much coordination, a few cuts were made so that the entire film would be more coherent. Tuesday the 17th had a goofy blood-dripping title card, and 10/31/98 ended with the characters miraculously surviving, like cartoon characters - still believing it was all just a haunted house attraction. The final version removes the reward, but the point is the same: their dopey commitment to doing good is extremely admirable, even in the face of the apocalypse. People focus way too much on the ending. The moral is that it doesn't matter if they died, because helping a woman chained up and beaten in an attic is absolutely the right thing to do. Tactical realism people are like 'maybe it's best not to prevent this rape, because the woman might be A WEREWOLF!' It's very similar to the complaints about 28 Weeks Later, where nerds want to see civilians massacred (to prevent the zombie apocalypse), and get frustrated when they refuse to die quietly.
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May 20, 2014 19:42
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It's a flip from to The Last Exorcism's twist, where people actually wanted Nell's father to be an ignorant, incestuous fundamentalist Christian bigot.
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May 20, 2014 20:20
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I kind of hope this V/H/S has a short dealing with how toxic hook up culture can be. With the rise of Grindr and Tinder there's this whole generation of people that feel entitled to go from lover to lover as though its some sort of toy store for their personal enjoyment.
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May 20, 2014 20:47
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It's really too bad that Tuesday the 17th was wasted in that first film. I think Benson/Moorehead could've done something interesting with that concept instead of something so nauseatingly banal.
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May 20, 2014 21:07
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HUNDU THE BEAST GOD posted:It's a flip from to The Last Exorcism's twist, where people actually wanted Nell's father to be an ignorant, incestuous fundamentalist Christian bigot. Sorry for the derail here, but did people actually want this? I was definitely one of the folks initially disappointed in the ending, but I wasn't hoping for Nell's father to be abusive and incestuous. Rather, I was hoping that the story she told at the end was true: that she'd gotten pregnant accidentally after hooking up with some boy, and that she was just overcome with shame and terror about the idea of what punishments lay in store for her if her dad found out the truth. But she understandably misunderstands him: he loves her deeply and cares first and foremost about her being safe. He never casts aspersions on "Well what did she do that let the demon in?", he's just utterly committed to saving her by any means necessary. In this alternate ending, the film becomes about these pervasive, crippling fears of twisted ideologies that don't actually quite exist. Fear of all-powerful Satanists, fear of evil incestuous Bible-thumpers, fear of what your loving father will do to you if you confess to him in a time of need. Fear that your fellow man is something dark and twisted and out to harm you, when really these are just as imaginary as the other monsters we make up. But yeah if people wanted the ending to be that he knocked her up, that's the loving worst.
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May 20, 2014 21:26
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Korak posted:I kind of hope this V/H/S has a short dealing with how toxic hook up culture can be. With the rise of Grindr and Tinder there's this whole generation of people that feel entitled to go from lover to lover as though its some sort of toy store for their personal enjoyment. Haha you dweeb. You literally want someone to make a horror movie so you can get one over on the sexhavers.
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May 20, 2014 21:49
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