How much is too much?
 

I love blood drenched flicks but where do you draw the line? I recently watched the first two Guinea Pig flicks and started to wonder. I passed on my copies to a friend because I don't ever really wanna watch them again.
I watched them by myself and wasn't really fazed but me and a bunch of friends were pretty wasted and we watched a couple of the more fucked up scenes and it really bothered me. I even left the room at one point haha :D
I can handle the extreme stuff more in the context of a splatter flick but the psuedo "snuff" really made me question why I would even want to watch this kinda shit. But I'm glad I checked them out because it was an experience.

I've got a copy of Nacho Cerdà's Aftermath on the way to me has anyone checked that out? Its sounds pretty extreme from the reveiws I've read but it seems like it's more artistic than the torture porn of Devil's Experiment and Flower of Flesh and Blood.

I stay away from stuff that tries to be "real". In something like a Peter Jackson / Bruno Mattei / Lucio Fulci / ect. movie, I can take whatever gore you can throw, but I have no interest in movies like Last House on the Left, I Spit on Your Grave, Guinea Pig (maybe some of the later ones, someday). I watch movies mostly to escape, realistic gore/violence turns me right off. There's a few exceptions (TCM), but not alot.

I wouldn't draw the line anywhere, so long as nobody is being actually hurt for the purposes of art/entertainment/stimulation (which they seldom are).

I think becoming jaded with overtly violent film has a curious effect - personally I have gone back to the mainstream at the moment, and realised there are actually some rather good films around nowadays (last seen: Crank - probably one of the most relentlessly exciting films ever made). That is not say I don't still enjoy a good exploitation flick, but the thrill of uncovering the more extreme end of the market - which sounds like your Guinea Pig experience - has been and gone. The legacy of encountering difficult underground cinema is vitally important to understanding the media as a whole, however.

And I wouldn't worry about questioning your motives for watching a fictional Japanese torture film - leave that to the campaign groups, Christians and the starched, sterile wierdos who make up the 'moral majority'. These are desperate to point the finger at anyone with a sense of dangerous adventure and curiousity, while they themselves are at home fucking their kids while preaching restraint and repression.

It's a weird line that I still puzzle over. And I think it's a great thing to ponder.

Film is great escapist fun and the glory of watching "extreme" films for the first time (especially in youth, when it's somehow more taboo) is a blast. But questioning if you have a line which is "too much" is a great bit of soul searching. Do I have limits? Do I push these limits for cheap thrills or to make some sort of statement to myself?

Like any philosophical undertaking, the answer is far less interesting than the series of questions that continue to spring up as a result of the question.

There was a time that I reveled in the faces of death films, but now I find them distasteful. I don't need to see that anymore, but at one point I thought it was mandatory viewing.

My buddy and I loved Flower Of Flesh and Blood. not a very good movie at all neccasarily, but damn impressive effects. My buddy threw up twice watching it...im not even fucking with you. hes a semi-gothic kid...but the eyeball suckingg....really fucking got to him. funny stufff.

devils experiment however...not a fun film. we watched it together..just kind of shocked all the way through. that shit is sick.

i make no bones about it - i like my violence cartoonish.
I'm not saying the other stuff shouldnt exist - but i do wonder why people would like it.

(i know - you arent supposed to like it)

so for me - the threshold is probably shorter than for most.
and the older i get the shorter it gets .. there just isnt any place in my world for it. i cant even watch the fucking news.

i know that the well travelled viewer likes seeing conventions get kicked in the teeth - i do to a point. to a point.


its just this simple - since having a child - i cant bear to see harm come to children - it hits me at home where i live.

not going to make any excuses for it - i just cant deal with it.

i dont think i need to poke around in the dark recesses of the mind .. the reptillian part where some curiosity needs to be sated .. i know from experience that certain images will haunt me for ever ..i dont want that.

the closest analogy i can come up with is that i've held my hand near a burning hot stove element. I've felt the heat ... and from that i've determined that i dont need the experience of actually grabbing onto it - burning the shit out of my hand in the process and permanently scarring myself - to know its probably not the right thing for me to do. i'm not going to like the sensation.

The funny thing with me is...IT DEPENDS ON THE FILM...

I can watch some really outrageous violence if it is handled in a certain way. Maybe you could call it an operatic or stagey way. A framework that makes the violence somehow stylized or fun. "Sleepy Hollow" is very gruesome and anatomical but so rooted in fantasy that it doesn't really seem real, for example. Not a problem to watch.

Tilt that very same kind of scene, just a little bit, towards dead realism, and I will find it unendingly unpleasant and more than a little offensive. It depends on the way the scene is staged...the attitude of the movie, the feel of the movie...

funny, but since having a kid I still haven't changed my screenwriting mantra of "kill the dog, kill the kid" on evertything I write. I find myself searching my deepest fears about child-rearing and forcing those to the surface in the most absurdly crude manner possible.

Very theraputic

Psuh the envelope, push the buttons, push the limits, i'm willing to stick around and see what straw breaks the camels back at the end. and i will cheer!!! YEEEHA!

I have seen both of the first two Guinea Pig movies and Aftermath.

The first Guinea Pig film, to me, was much more distasteful than the second. There wasn't as much blood/gore in it, but the things being done were far more nasty and distasteful. They just beat/tortured the girl for the whole film - most of it wasn't shot for gore, it was shot for cruelty. I think that felt a whole lot different to Flower of Flesh and Blood.

FoFaB seemed much more a showcase of special effects. It was seriously over the top re: gore, but somehow just didn't feel as cruel as the first one (perhaps because the victim was unconscious or semi-conscious due to being drugged?) It was, however quite well made (although not necessarily entirely anatomically correct - at least in some parts).

I don't think either of these films really pushed my buttons (although I know some people for whom they have). They were OK for a watch, but they don't really have any great repeat value, probably because there is really no plot/story. If anything, FoFaB probably has more repeat value than DE just for the special effects.

Aftermath is a whole other ballgame. It is artistic. It looks beautiful in some senses, and quite vile in others. Whilst films like the Guinea Pigs and August Underground films are shot to look gritty and "real" (ie the fake snuff line); Aftermath is obviously produced and orchestrated. Classical music, stark sets, and quality production values are juxtaposed with scenes of defilement and depravity. There are some reasonable special effects, and some shock value, but I found myself pondering its message in a way that one obviously wouldn't after seeing the likes of Guinea Pig. I would recommend Aftermath as a very worthwhile viewing if the potential viewer had an open mind didn't mind seeing things that pushed boundaries.