I don’t think I will . . .
According to this Grauniad article some people in the UK have required emergency medical treatment as a result of watching this film. Could this be true or do you think it’s some sort of ‘Halloween prank’ article?
I thought the original Saw was just another of those low-budget farcical over-the-top horror flicks. And now they’ve made three of them. What do you think the moral issues (if any) are about promoting films that show extremely graphic torture scenes?
casa azahar 
That article sounds like nonsense. But who knows.
I quite enjoyed the original “Saw” film. Haven’t seen the sequels. I don’t think there are any moral issues involved in promoting films that show graphic violence or torture scenes. It’s just a movie. I’ve seen *real* graphic violence in my lifetime; it hasn’t prevented me separating reality from make-believe.
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I suppose I should clarify: I think that it’s the moviegoer’s responsibility to determine beforehand what sort of film effects he or she can handle. If a person has a hard time dealing with even make-believe violence, then perhaps he or she could select a different movie to attend? The onus should be on the moviegoers, not on the producers or promoters.
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I’m a boring old fashioned old woman and I prefer my movies without violence, torture, graphic sex. I haven’t seen a single one of the Saw movies, probably won’t. If people want to watch that kind of crap, more power to them.
Makes me think of a person I know, though. Her very favorite sorts of books to read are the ones containing graphic descriptions of murders, especially serial murders. Long descriptive passages of the thought processes going on in those sick brains.
a single mother, living with her teenaged son. And she has trouble with panic attacks, they are just awful, even debilitating. Especially late at night. And she can’t understand why I suggest that maybe she might want to choose something a little less sensational to read once in a while.
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Me? I just can’t watch that shit.
Apparently not an unusual response for people who have experienced abuse as a child. The idea of watching someone in a totally helpless situation having horrible things done to them cuts too close to the bone, you know?
Heck, I remember watching the Empire Stikes Back at the cinema when I was maybe 22 and I got a full-blown panic attack at one point … it was a scene with the evil all-powerful Emperor talking with Darth Vader … and I did almost run screaming from the cinema. No doubt all the Nazi symbolism in that film didn’t help. Apparently many child abuse victims have nightmares about Nazis – weird but true.
Has anyone seen the Spanish film Tesis? About the making of snuff films. It’s brilliant. You never *see* anything horrible happening in the film, just an audio tape of a woman screaming while she is being tortured to death … still sends shivers down my spine thinking about it.
So I guess I cannot imagine the sort of person who would actually enjoy watching people being tortured and having various bits of their bodies cut off and all that horrible stuff.
This is entertainment? 😕
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To each his or her own, I guess. I too was abused as a child, so I in no way would want to belittle anyone else’s experiences- nor would I ever show or recommend to someone a film I thought might upset them. I just find it quite easy, for me, to differentiate between real-life abuse, which pisses me off to no end, and make-believe violence, which doesn’t faze me.
And some of the best “violent” films are actually kick-ass revenge flicks. I find that I quite enjoy watching Very Bad People get their comeuppance. And some stuff is so far over the top, it’s quite funny.
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“And some of the best “violent” films are actually kick-ass revenge flicks.” (PC)
Well, quite, like all those vigilante Charles Bronson films in the 70’s – you could vicariously get yer rocks off watching some Baddie get their comeuppance.
But what is the point of watching extremely violent films that only show the torture and death of hapless people who happened to be at a certain place at a certain time? They haven’t done anything wrong. They aren’t ‘bad guys’. WTF?
I really struggle to find how this can be entertaining. What’s behind that? Why do people enjoy watching other people being tortured to death just because they happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time?
Nog and I have been watching The Sopranos on dvd recently and – yes! – you sometimes do love it when somebody ‘gets what’s coming to them’. But it isn’t mindless violence like so many of these ‘slasher’ films portray.
Why do people like watching this shit? I honestly don’t understand.
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I can only speak for myself, and for movies I have seen. When I watched the original “Saw” film, and a couple of similar films (I have a “thing” for Italian horror and zombie flicks, and for the same reasons), I enjoyed not so much the watching people be tortured, but more the psychological aspect of how people stuck in the same life-or-death situation will turn on each other to save their own skins. And also the pretty obvious vicarious experience- the “no, no, don’t run UP the stairs”… I don’t know exactly how to explain it.
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Incidentally, I really don’t mean to upset or offend anyone who’s sensitive to this stuff. I once had someone I considered a friend (at h2g2) call me a “creep” and other nasty things, because I enjoy horror flicks. That really hurt my feelings.
There may be no accounting for tatse, but I neither would ridicule someone else for their preferences, nor want people to think poorly of me because of mine. So I hope I don’t sound like I’m being to flippant or anything?
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“because I enjoy horror flicks”
Fair enough. Horror flicks are scary films about scary stuff. The very best horror films leave you with the feeling of all the hairs on your body standing on end … but the ‘monster’ usually ends up being someone you feel sorry for. Like Dracula or Frankenstein, for example.
Gratuitous torture films are something quite different, imho. Violence simply for the sake of violence shows nothing intelligent going on behind it … in fact it shows to me a very sick mind who thinks this sort of shit might be somehow entertaining to others.
Gee, it’s entertaining to watch someone having their nipples cut off with a pair of pliers? While they are screaming their head off? That’s entertainment?
The mind reels . . .
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I don’t know. I’ve never watched anyone have their nipples cut off with a pair of pliers. I’ve only seen movies where it’s portrayed. Big difference between a movie- which may perhaps be a sick mind purging itself in a harmless fashion, or may just be the writer giving the audience what it wants- and real life.
I don’t want anyone to think I’m flouncing off in a huff, but I really don’t think I can add anything that anyone here wants to hear, and I do not like feeling like I have a “sick” mind when that is most definitely not the case. So I’d like to bow out gracefully and politely at this point, and engage myself if some of the other discussion.
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Okay … up to you. 🙂
See you elsewhere then, wherever you feel more comfortable. Me, I’m off to bed. Hasta mañana…………..
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I read all of the above. Azahar, I am totally with you on this one. I am sorry PC is upset, and I don’t think she has a “sick mind”.
However, when you are watching a movie of someone having their nipples cut off with a pair of pliers you are watching someone have their nipples cut off. Even if you know it is “only a movie.” There have been quite a number of studies of what goes on in the brain of a person who is watching that sort of thing go on, and your adrenalin surge and fear reaction are quite powerful even when you watch something you “Know” is a movie. There are people who are addicted to horror, because they are addicted to the adrenaline surge, the same way there are people addicted to the surge they get on a roller coaster.
I do not find violent movies entertaining. I do not like graphic depictions of violence. I think it hardens people to it, makes it somehow less horrible.
A sudden thought: perhaps these violent movies and their popularity are part of the explanation for why the US now feels it does not have to adhere to the Geneva Conventions against torture. It is only waterboarding, after all, not having your nipples torn off.
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Maybe I’m a wimp, but I don’t watch horror films.
I’ve seen enough of the real thing over the years, including an *extremely* violent next door neighbor, and I’m just too cheap to spend the money… 😉
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