Video Nasties: Art, Capitalism, and VHS

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > Cinema Discusso > Video Nasties: Art, Capitalism, and VHS

Alhazred: Feb 16, 2011

Maxwell Lord posted:

Of the many things the Thatcher Government did this probably ranks low on the Pure Evil list- it's no Section 28, nobody starved because of this (though Fangoria once published a letter from someone kicked off a job because he'd mentioned that he had two VCRs and was thus suspected of being a video pirate), there may have been a couple of arrests- but it's interesting still. Also, it is technically still in effect. Standards have relaxed so much that most of the original nasties are now available to the UK public uncut, but there's still cases involving particularly violent bondage porn and the like. The BBFC still reserves the right to refuse certification for a film in the UK, though as early as 1996 the outgoing director of the institution said he foresaw a point where it would become purely voluntary.

We have something similar in Norway. Battleship Potemkin for example wasn't allowed in Norway until 1954 because, amongst other things, a scene where an officer smiles scornfully:
https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.dagbladet.no%2Fkultur%2Fmed-saks-gjennom-filmhistorien%2F65915809
https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&u=https%3A%2F%2Fp3.no%2Ffilmpolitiet%2F2010%2F08%2Fforbuden-film%2F

# ? Dec 30, 2018 17:50

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# ? Apr 26, 2024 11:30

Mel Mudkiper: Jan 19, 2012; At this point, Mudman abruptly ends the conversation. He usually insists on the last word.

Choco1980 posted:

It's part of the whole take it has on the Mondo movie genre that it's harshly criticizing, which whole appeal were "come see this lurid and outrageous stuff that we totally assure you is for real!" and is saying "How dare you create a market for that sort of thing"

That's not what I am talking about tho

# ? Dec 30, 2018 19:31

BeanpolePeckerwood: May 4, 2004; I MAY LOOK LIKE SHIT BUT IM ALSO DUMB AS FUCK

This thread is good (thank you op), but it's going to get bad real fast if people keep arguing ad nauseum that their particular read of a film and its history is the definitive one. A little humility goes a long way.

# ? Dec 30, 2018 22:39

Choco1980: Feb 22, 2013; I fell in love with a Video Nasty

Alhazred posted:

We have something similar in Norway. Battleship Potemkin for example wasn't allowed in Norway until 1954 because, amongst other things, a scene where an officer smiles scornfully:
https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.dagbladet.no%2Fkultur%2Fmed-saks-gjennom-filmhistorien%2F65915809
https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&u=https%3A%2F%2Fp3.no%2Ffilmpolitiet%2F2010%2F08%2Fforbuden-film%2F

I'll definitely have to read this soon. The whole topic fascinates me around the globe. For xmas I just got this new book of essays that looks really good called "Silencing Cinema: Film Censorship Around The Globe" about how different countries have dealt with the subject. At the end of the day it's all about the moral and/or political majority flexing power, and history will always repeat itself because the lesson is never learned.

# ? Dec 31, 2018 03:02

Mel Mudkiper: Jan 19, 2012; At this point, Mudman abruptly ends the conversation. He usually insists on the last word.

BeanpolePeckerwood posted:

This thread is good (thank you op), but it's going to get bad real fast if people keep arguing ad nauseum that their particular read of a film and its history is the definitive one. A little humility goes a long way.

I dont think anyone is though. Passionate debate about film is cool and I dont think anyone is saying their interpretation is absolute

# ? Dec 31, 2018 04:21

BeanpolePeckerwood: May 4, 2004; I MAY LOOK LIKE SHIT BUT IM ALSO DUMB AS FUCK

Bluedeanie posted:

Does swap.avi count as a video nasty?

It's actually been at the center of censorship cases for at least a decade.

# ? Dec 31, 2018 04:41

Bluedeanie: Jul 20, 2008; It's no longer a blue world, Max. Where could we go?

BeanpolePeckerwood posted:

It's actually been at the center of censorship cases for at least a decade.

Oh ok, then that one is my favorite and it should be in the op imo

# ? Dec 31, 2018 14:52

Choco1980: Feb 22, 2013; I fell in love with a Video Nasty

I would love to see some citation if this is true. I definitely want to see THAT court case!

# ? Dec 31, 2018 16:52

Mel Mudkiper: Jan 19, 2012; At this point, Mudman abruptly ends the conversation. He usually insists on the last word.

the poor lawyer who has to watch the video over and over to build an argument

# ? Dec 31, 2018 18:19

Windows 98: Nov 13, 2005; HTTP 400: Bad post

Mel Mudkiper posted:

the poor lawyer who has to watch the video over and over to build an argument

I�m working pro bono please don�t kink shame

# ? Dec 31, 2018 19:49

BeanpolePeckerwood: May 4, 2004; I MAY LOOK LIKE SHIT BUT IM ALSO DUMB AS FUCK

Choco1980 posted:

I would love to see some citation if this is true. I definitely want to see THAT court case!

Well-spoken weirdo Ira Isaacs tried to use the virality of 2girls1cup in his defense for "artistic merit" of his shock videos during an obscenity trial; there was at least one mistrial in that case but then he was convicted to 5 years. The original "Hungry Bitches" video is by a Brazillian fetish director or something.

# ? Jan 1, 2019 02:01

Mel Mudkiper: Jan 19, 2012; At this point, Mudman abruptly ends the conversation. He usually insists on the last word.

Eli Roth is a loving disgrace

Everyone when they are a child puts on their father's sport coat and pretends that they are going to work. Few of us actually show up at our parents work, fiddle about aimlessly with his things, and claim we are taking over.

Eli Roth is the second.

I cannot speak to the technical prowess of Eli Roth, as he is arguably a more proficient director than the video nasty era filmmakers he emulates, but I can speak to the fundamental soullessness of Roth products.

As mentioned before, the Video Nasty was inseparable from the era in which it was created. It was a genre purely built out of new paradigms of doing business in the movie industry, and died out as soon as that paradigm was no longer profitable. It is superficial to look at that genre of film and consider that violence, or sexuality, or extreme imagery is the correlating theme among all of those films. It is not. The correlating theme is the arms race of the Id itself.

The failure of Roth as a director is that he mistakes content for spirit, and believes that simply replicating imagery means the replication of a genre. Roth wants to a video nasty director, and has decided that he can do so by making movies that look like video nasties. However, by attempting to replicate the imagery of a genre that was heavily based on zeitgeist, he loses track of the fundamental soul that made these films significant.

Eli Roth's friendship with Quentin Tarantino only serves to highlight this truth. Tarantino, like Roth, is a man deeply nostalgic for a previous era of filmmaking. Tarantino, due to his age, looks back to the era of the exploitation film in the same way Roth looks back to the video nasty. The difference however, is that Tarantino understands that imagery is the less important element of these films. Spirit, instead, is. His most successful films have co-opted the imagery of his favorite genres with a deft understanding of the current zeitgeist. His early films were soaked in the pop-culture and irony obsessed Gen-X. His later films all wrestled with the context of his material in the eyes of a contemporary audience. In short, Tarantino loves paying tribute to older films in a way that embraces modernity.

Roth lacks this fundamental refinement. His most artistically and commercially successful films, such as Hostel and Cabin Fever, were also the ones least concerned with replication. However, his later works, such as "thanksgiving" and especially "the green inferno" were entirely tone-deaf genre send ups that failed to meaningfully speak to the films we was claiming to celebrate. He is trying to make films never meant for theatres into films shown in theatres, and failing to consider the implications of what that means. Tarantino knew you couldn't show grindhouse and exploitation films in a conventional theatre and preserve the experience (and Grindhouse the movie definitely reminded him of that) so he took those ideas and adapted them to a different environment. Roth doesn't, which is why he fails.

next up

The Green Inferno vs. Mondo: A failure of adaptation

# ? Jan 2, 2019 19:57

Windows 98: Nov 13, 2005; HTTP 400: Bad post

Counter Point: Eli Roth is actually cool and good, and gore for the sake of gore with no artistic thematic backing is entirely in the spirit of the 80s VHS cash in that Video Nasties also exploited. Not every movie needs to be deep or profound. There really needs to be zero excuse to show us gore and violence. A loosely written plot is perfectly fine as long as I see a dude get his cock chopped off or a hot poker into an open wound.

# ? Jan 2, 2019 20:15

Mel Mudkiper: Jan 19, 2012; At this point, Mudman abruptly ends the conversation. He usually insists on the last word.

Windows 98 posted:

Counter Point: Eli Roth is actually cool and good, and gore for the sake of gore with no artistic thematic backing is entirely in the spirit of the 80s VHS cash in that Video Nasties also exploited

I disagree.

The gore did not exist for its own sake, but because the gore could create a profitable market in an emerging industry. It was a genre built by capitalism, not aesthetics. Trying to replicate that imagery in an era in which the economic factors that birthed it no longer exist is mere pantomime.

The gore didn't define the video nasty, the hyper specialized markets did. The gore was just a byproduct of that.

# ? Jan 2, 2019 20:19

Windows 98: Nov 13, 2005; HTTP 400: Bad post

I don�t think you understand capitalism. Hollow garbage for the sake of hocking it to the public is essentially capitalism boiled down.

# ? Jan 2, 2019 20:22

Mel Mudkiper: Jan 19, 2012; At this point, Mudman abruptly ends the conversation. He usually insists on the last word.

Windows 98 posted:

I don’t think you understand capitalism. Hollow garbage for the sake of hocking it to the public is essentially capitalism boiled down.

But the video nasty wasnt hocked to the public. Very few people watched these movies. Which is the point. They knew only a small audience wanted movies this extreme so they created a tiny market in which they could make a profit off that specific demand.

Releasing a hyper violent Gore film in a theater is missing the point of why the films were hyper gorey.

He is marketing pantomime to a de sensitized audience rather than exploring what it would take to truly be extreme to a jaded modern audience as his icons did

# ? Jan 2, 2019 20:27

Windows 98: Nov 13, 2005; HTTP 400: Bad post

You need to pick a side. Either it�s profitable, aka hocked to the masses, or its niche for a select few. I would argue that most of the films on the Nasties list were mostly garbage produced to make a quick buck, and a rather sizable portion of the public has seen at least one or two of them, but mostly due to the hype from the ban. With the exception of The Evil Dead most of the Nasties are hollow commercial efforts to get people to rent them based almost exclusively on the name or box art. That for me categorized it in the �for the masses�. Throw it at the public and see what sticks. Which makes Eli Roth�s films the same vein. He�s using gore with a lack of substance as a commercial selling point to the masses. I think he is more than perfectly capable of writing some actual content with soul and thematic overtones to it if he wanted to, as evidence by the History of Horror series he recently started. It�s abundantly clear he understands the horror and extreme horror genres and why that wave was successful, and he wants to emulate it because he loves it, wether there is a market for it or not in the modern era.

# ? Jan 2, 2019 20:38

Mel Mudkiper: Jan 19, 2012; At this point, Mudman abruptly ends the conversation. He usually insists on the last word.

Windows 98 posted:

You need to pick a side. Either it�s profitable, aka hocked to the masses, or its niche for a select few.

from literally the OP

Mel Mudkiper posted:

Capitalism and Arms Race of the Id

There are two ways to make a million dollars. One way is to make a million people give you a dollar. The other way is to make a thousand people give you a thousand dollars. It is under this sort of economic model that the video nasty was born. The VHS market created a new kind of business in the film industry, hyper-specificity. With the absence of the theater experience, it was no longer necessary to try and appeal to broad audiences. Instead, it became practical to appeal to very specific audiences at the exclusion of everyone else. It didn't matter if 99% of the public doesn't want to see films about nazi dominatrices having lesbian sex with jewish slaves in Auschwitz if 1% wanted to see that and was willing to pay to see it.

There was no need to manufacture a sense of decorum. Even less reason to worry about punishment or censorship from the authorities. You could put literally whatever you wanted on a video tape as long as you were certain you could find enough people to buy or rent your tape. The cheaper the budget, the more explicit the product could be, and still make back its budget. If you were lucky enough to be publicly condemned, you stood a chance to make a fortune.

What this lead to in the industry was a sort of Arms Race of the Id. Studios kept pushing themselves ever further into extremes as the specialized audiences of their products dictated tastes. If a 15 minute explicit rape scene made bank, studios would start making 30 minute rape scenes.

And this, I think, is where the video nasty becomes art

also

Windows 98 posted:

With the exception of The Evil Dead most of the Nasties are hollow commercial efforts to get people to rent them based almost exclusively on the name or box art. That for me categorized it in the “for the masses”.

Your categories are incorrect

# ? Jan 2, 2019 20:44

Windows 98: Nov 13, 2005; HTTP 400: Bad post

Ok then have fun with your thread bro. Seems like you�ve got an opinion that you created a thread to promote with no real interest in other people�s opinions. It�s not much fun to have a discussion like that.

# ? Jan 2, 2019 20:46

Mel Mudkiper: Jan 19, 2012; At this point, Mudman abruptly ends the conversation. He usually insists on the last word.

Windows 98 posted:

Ok then have fun with your thread bro. Seems like you�ve got an opinion that you created a thread to promote with no real interest in other people�s opinions. It�s not much fun to have a discussion like that.

I disagreed with your point when you said you disagreed with mine

what more did you expect

also, again, from the OP

Mel Mudkiper posted:

So now what?

What then is the point of this thread?

For myself, I will be occasionally be posting mini essays I have written over the years on various video nasties.

# ? Jan 2, 2019 20:48

Hollismason: Jun 30, 2007; Feel free to disregard this post.

It is guaranteed to be lazy, ignorant, and/or uninformed.

Video Nasties weren't just made for "capitalism" as you seem to think they have no artistic merit your also kind of missing the point that while a majority were extreme there are in fact many films of that era that are banned but now are considered some of the best horror films made.

Possession being one of them.

That era was about really pushing the limits of new technologies in make up specifically latex molds something that prior to the 80s just really wasn't there.

If anything that decade and those films with extreme gore pushed people to be better and learn more about practical effects where practical effects that at the time were revolutionary are now common place.

Like alot of those movies were special effects driven and the artistry was in the realism and graphicness of the special effects themselves.

Hollismason fucked around with this message at 21:03 on Jan 2, 2019

# ? Jan 2, 2019 20:58

Mel Mudkiper: Jan 19, 2012; At this point, Mudman abruptly ends the conversation. He usually insists on the last word.

Hollismason posted:

Video Nasties weren't just made for "capitalism" as you seem to think they have no artistic merit

Mel Mudkiper posted:

Capitalism and Arms Race of the Id

There are two ways to make a million dollars. One way is to make a million people give you a dollar. The other way is to make a thousand people give you a thousand dollars. It is under this sort of economic model that the video nasty was born. The VHS market created a new kind of business in the film industry, hyper-specificity. With the absence of the theater experience, it was no longer necessary to try and appeal to broad audiences. Instead, it became practical to appeal to very specific audiences at the exclusion of everyone else. It didn't matter if 99% of the public doesn't want to see films about nazi dominatrices having lesbian sex with jewish slaves in Auschwitz if 1% wanted to see that and was willing to pay to see it.

There was no need to manufacture a sense of decorum. Even less reason to worry about punishment or censorship from the authorities. You could put literally whatever you wanted on a video tape as long as you were certain you could find enough people to buy or rent your tape. The cheaper the budget, the more explicit the product could be, and still make back its budget. If you were lucky enough to be publicly condemned, you stood a chance to make a fortune.

What this lead to in the industry was a sort of Arms Race of the Id. Studios kept pushing themselves ever further into extremes as the specialized audiences of their products dictated tastes. If a 15 minute explicit rape scene made bank, studios would start making 30 minute rape scenes.

And this, I think, is where the video nasty becomes art

# ? Jan 2, 2019 21:02

Mel Mudkiper: Jan 19, 2012; At this point, Mudman abruptly ends the conversation. He usually insists on the last word.

Hollismason posted:

That era was about really pushing the limits of new technologies in make up specifically latex molds something that prior to the 80s just really wasn't there.

If anything that decade and those films with extreme gore pushed people to be better and learn more about practical effects where practical effects that at the time were revolutionary are now common place.

Like alot of those movies were special effects driven and the artistry was in the realism and graphicness of the special effects themselves.

so make an effort post arguing that perspective instead of getting mad at mine

Like, I have clearly said in the OP I have a specific perspective on these films that I am going to present and argue for. If you have a different one, you are free to present it as well.

# ? Jan 2, 2019 21:05

Hollismason: Jun 30, 2007; Feel free to disregard this post.

It is guaranteed to be lazy, ignorant, and/or uninformed.

It's not though because you are discounting the actual artistry in the special effects themselves. Also this wasn't some niche audience magazines like Fangoria etc had 100 of thousands of readers.

These films were very very popular. They made big bucks for the time and for what their budget was.

To the point where special effects artists were highly sought after even more than directors.

# ? Jan 2, 2019 21:06

Mel Mudkiper: Jan 19, 2012; At this point, Mudman abruptly ends the conversation. He usually insists on the last word.

Hollismason posted:

These films were very very popular. They made big bucks for the time and for what their budget was.

Mel Mudkiper posted:

The cheaper the budget, the more explicit the product could be, and still make back its budget. If you were lucky enough to be publicly condemned, you stood a chance to make a fortune.

# ? Jan 2, 2019 21:08

Hollismason: Jun 30, 2007; Feel free to disregard this post.

It is guaranteed to be lazy, ignorant, and/or uninformed.

That budget went all into the special effects it's like Corman said " you can have lovely actors and a great monster but you can't have both".

Tom Saving , Baker , Winston all of those guys coming after people like Harry Hausen etc were pushing the envelope using new technologies and new technique for puppetry , matte painting , latex casting. Doing poo poo no one had seen before.

That's why Tom Savini is Tom Savini.

Several of his films are in the video nasties list.

The issue wasn't that they were exploitative trash. It was that no one had ever seen anything like this before.

Now it's common place but still that time it wasn't. So special effects and kills were what drive horror at that time. Who could make it the most graphic who could do something new that we hadn't seen.

Savinis shotgun to the head in Maniac The Prowler. The puppetry in stuff like Possession.

In the 50 and 60s it was the monster movie the 80s were the decade of gore. Good gore not HGL stuff or Hammer.

# ? Jan 2, 2019 21:21

Mel Mudkiper: Jan 19, 2012; At this point, Mudman abruptly ends the conversation. He usually insists on the last word.

Hollismason posted:

That budget went all into the special effects it's like Corman said " you can have lovely actors and a great monster but you can't have both".

Tom Saving , Baker , Winston all of those guys coming after people like Harry Hausen etc were pushing the envelope using new technologies and new technique for puppetry , matte painting , latex casting. Doing poo poo no one had seen before.

That's why Tom Savini is Tom Savini.

Several of his films are in the video nasties list.

The issue wasn't that they were exploitative trash. It was that no one had ever seen anything like this before.

Now it's common place but still that time it wasn't. So special effects and kills were what drive horror at that time. Who could make it the most graphic who could do something new that we hadn't seen.

Savinis shotgun to the head in Maniac The Prowler. The puppetry in stuff like Possession.

In the 50 and 60s it was the monster movie the 80s were the decade of gore. Good gore not HGL stuff or Hammer.

I see a lot of this as in-sync with my own argument however. Special effects and gore were the stars because the titilation of ever more "realistic" violence was essential to the niche that the Video Nasty profited from. As the gorier and more realistic movies made greater profits in the niche that watched these films, it prompted effects men to work on ever more realistic and ingenious ways of presenting that imagery.

Like I agree with you that the motivation of innovation of practical effects lead to some very impressive work. Its one of the reasons I referred to it as an arms race. Just as the space race lead to innovation through competition, so did the video nasty.

However, I disagree with the assertion you made earlier that a film can be artistic based solely on the technical merits of its effects. I would argue there has to be a fundamental social and historical context that is necessary as well. A film must interact with the society that produced it. The effects were an essential part of that interaction, but the effects themselves do not render that interaction irrelevant.

EDIT: As a side-note, I always found it interesting Tom Savini hated Carpenter's The Thing despite it being one of the most visually impressive uses of practical effects ever.

Mel Mudkiper fucked around with this message at 21:32 on Jan 2, 2019

# ? Jan 2, 2019 21:29

Mel Mudkiper: Jan 19, 2012; At this point, Mudman abruptly ends the conversation. He usually insists on the last word.

Like, you mention that kills and gore drove horror in a way monsters did in an earlier generation

and I absolutely agree

I am offering an argument for why gore became the essential element

# ? Jan 2, 2019 21:34

Hollismason: Jun 30, 2007; Feel free to disregard this post.

It is guaranteed to be lazy, ignorant, and/or uninformed.

It's in the name Special Effects Artists. Not Special Effects Technical person.

# ? Jan 2, 2019 21:34

Mel Mudkiper: Jan 19, 2012; At this point, Mudman abruptly ends the conversation. He usually insists on the last word.

Hollismason posted:

It's in the name Special Effects Artists. Not Special Effects Technical person.

https://apply.mysubwaycareer.com/us/en/job-descriptions/sa-job-description/

# ? Jan 2, 2019 21:39

Hollismason: Jun 30, 2007; Feel free to disregard this post.

It is guaranteed to be lazy, ignorant, and/or uninformed.

There was literally dozens of magazines dedicated to special effects artists and special effects in the 80s you could say that the 80s more than any decade was when the fandom of special effects really took off.

Like you're claiming what made Tom Savini and Stan Winston famous is not art.

Even further back than that your saying g people.like Lon Chaney were not artists in their craft.

Hollismason fucked around with this message at 21:54 on Jan 2, 2019

# ? Jan 2, 2019 21:51

Mel Mudkiper: Jan 19, 2012; At this point, Mudman abruptly ends the conversation. He usually insists on the last word.

Hollismason posted:

Like you're claiming what made Tom Savini and Stan Winston famous is not art.

No, I am claiming that a movie is not solely art because it had Tom Savini or Sam Winston in it

a film is judged on the totality of its form and its place in the culture, not by one single element.

I completely respect the artistry of what Tom Savini and Sam Winston created, but that doesn't mean the film its in is made all the more virtuous by its inclusion.

Like the The Prowler, for instance, is a marvel of physical effects but as a film itself its not really all that meaningful. There is not a reason to bring it up other than to point how impressive Savini's work was.

One of the reasons I list David Cronenberg as one of my favorite director's is because he often mixed that level of technical artistry with contextual significance.

Videodrome is straight up my favorite movie.

# ? Jan 2, 2019 21:57

Hollismason: Jun 30, 2007; Feel free to disregard this post.

It is guaranteed to be lazy, ignorant, and/or uninformed.

The Prowler , Maniac , The Burning , Friday the 13th.All of those films are memorable because of Tom Savini.

It's the same thing as "Would the silent film Phantom of the Opera" be the same without Chaney's at the time groundbreaking work.

Those films are made special because if Tom Savinis work.

That's why they have merit because what you see in screen is Tom Savinis vision you're seeing his art.

You shouldn't think of special effects as just the effects. Most effect scenes are in fact blocked and directed by the effects artist. The directors are going to look at a scene and say how can we do this? And the effects artist is going to say " We need to do it this way and I'll make it look like this" in the case of a lot of those films there would be a Kill meeting.

Basically effects teams and artist in their time off think and sketch and out and plan how to do effects and really those films a just vehicles for moving from effect to effect set piece to set piece.

Hollismason fucked around with this message at 22:08 on Jan 2, 2019

# ? Jan 2, 2019 22:06

Mel Mudkiper: Jan 19, 2012; At this point, Mudman abruptly ends the conversation. He usually insists on the last word.

Hollismason posted:

The Prowler , Maniac , The Burning , Friday the 13th.All of those films are memorable because of Tom Savini.

It's the same thing as "Would the silent film Phantom of the Opera" be the same without Chaney's at the time groundbreaking work.

Those films are made special because if Tom Savinis work.

That's why they have merit because what you see in screen is Tom Savinis vision you're seeing his art.

You shouldn't think of special effects as just the effects. Most effect scenes are in fact blocked and directed by the effects artist. The directors are going to look at a scene and say how can we do this? And the effects artist is going to say " We need to do it this way and I'll make it look like this" in the case of a lot of those films there would be a Kill meeting.

Basically effects teams and artist in their time off think and sketch and out and plan how to do effects and really those films a just vehicles for moving from effect to effect set piece to set piece.

I am not arguing that, I acknowledge all of that and agree.

But none of that, in itself, creates contextual significance

I feel like we are arguing past each other. I am saying a film as a whole needs a greater sense of significance than the sum of its parts, and your response to is to emphasize how hard special effects are.

# ? Jan 2, 2019 22:11

Baku: Aug 20, 2005; by Fluffdaddy

For what it's worth, I also think Eli Roth kind of sucks. I don't find his films either aesthetically interesting or shocking, I've never found anything compelling in their artistry, and while this isn't entirely germane to a conversation about the content or quality of his films I find him personally to be sort of irritating and abrasive as a cultural figure and horror icon.

The closest I got to giving one a second thought was Hostel, because of its political themes/context, but I think The Devil's Rejects is a much more interesting movie about the same cultural mood.

# ? Jan 2, 2019 22:12

Mel Mudkiper: Jan 19, 2012; At this point, Mudman abruptly ends the conversation. He usually insists on the last word.

No. 1 Apartheid Fan posted:

The closest I got to giving one a second thought was Hostel, because of its political themes/context, but I think The Devil's Rejects is a much more interesting movie about the same cultural mood.

This dude gets it.

Devil's Rejects is really good in a way that makes every other film Rob Zombie ever more depressing

# ? Jan 2, 2019 22:13

Franchescanado: Feb 23, 2013; If it wasn't for disappointment
I wouldn't have any appointment; Grimey Drawer

Mel Mudkiper posted:

This dude gets it.

Devil's Rejects is really good in a way that makes every other film Rob Zombie ever more depressing

Hey now, The Lords of Salem is really good.

# ? Jan 2, 2019 22:14

Mel Mudkiper: Jan 19, 2012; At this point, Mudman abruptly ends the conversation. He usually insists on the last word.

Franchescanado posted:

Hey now, The Lords of Salem is really good.

Admittedly I didn't watch it because Halloween 2 was so loving bad I refused to ever see anything of his again

Holy goddamn could I go on a big ol rant about how bad Halloween 2.

Arguably the worst movie I ever saw in a theatre next to The Spirit.

# ? Jan 2, 2019 22:17

Franchescanado: Feb 23, 2013; If it wasn't for disappointment
I wouldn't have any appointment; Grimey Drawer

Mel Mudkiper posted:

Admittedly I didn't watch it because Halloween 2 was so loving bad I refused to ever see anything of his again

Holy goddamn could I go on a big ol rant about how bad Halloween 2.

Arguably the worst movie I ever saw in a theatre next to The Spirit.

The Lords of Salem is probably his 2nd best next to The Devil's Rejects, but if someone said it was his best, I wouldn't argue. I've never seen Halloween 2, because I really dislike his take on Halloween, but the majority of horror goons in CineD love Halloween 2. I keep meaning to watch it to see where I land, but I always find something else I'd rather watch.

# ? Jan 2, 2019 22:19

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# ? Apr 26, 2024 11:30

Baku: Aug 20, 2005; by Fluffdaddy

Franchescanado posted:

Hey now, The Lords of Salem is really good.

I enjoyed a lot of this movie too, and to the extent I like any Halloween movies other than the original, I think his are kinda interesting. Like most big horror franchises, that one has a real bad signal:noise ratio, and when it's poo poo it's the least fun to watch because it's much more mundane/grounded than something like Nightmare or Hellraiser.

I had a friend say H20 was a good movie this year and almost did a spit take.

# ? Jan 2, 2019 22:21

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > Cinema Discusso > Video Nasties: Art, Capitalism, and VHS

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