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Asterie posted:
Yes! Martyrs is hands-down THE most disturbing movie I've ever seen. Of course, I haven't watched most of the movies in this thread... yet!  I think it definitely counts as a psychological thriller. At the same time, however, it is unashamedly gory. But the gore is not handled in a way that's pornographic or exploitative. You're not meant to go "gently caress YEAH! RIP HIM APART!!11!" like with Hostel or Saw. You're meant to feel hopeless, beaten-down, and full of despair, just like the protagonist/victim, Anna. It's a brutally nihilistic film, but it has multiple layers beyond that. There is subtle commentary regarding the dynamic between the French upper class and working class immigrants, as well as the religious themes that have already been mentioned. And the most fascinating thing is that the ending can be interpreted in multiple ways, making it different for every viewer. For me, the moment when Anna wakes up in the chamber and fully comprehends how painful and inescapable the rest of her life will be was absolutely soul-crushing. This is followed by the brutal beatings, systemic dehumanization, and horrific flaying. By the end, I was completely emotionally worn down. This movie literally bothered me for days after I first watched it. The bad thing is that Hollywood's making a remake with Kristen Stewart. The director has already shown he doesn't care about the themes of the movie, saying "You don't have to shoot yourself when it's over." I can't wait to see the upbeat, watered-down, American Martyrs!  Do you think that in this version Lucie will rise from the grave and kill all the cult members to save Anna?
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Jan 29, 2012 10:34
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^^^^Exactly, thank you a foolish pianist posted:I'm pretty sure what you're describing there is exactly what people mean by gore porn. FourLeaf posted:I think it definitely counts as a psychological thriller. At the same time, however, it is unashamedly gory. But the gore is not handled in a way that's pornographic or exploitative. You're not meant to go "gently caress YEAH! RIP HIM APART!!11!" like with Hostel or Saw. You're meant to feel hopeless, beaten-down, and full of despair
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Jan 30, 2012 02:41
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a foolish pianist posted:"gently caress yeah rip him apart!" sounds like a really unhealthy response to gore in a film. When I saw Saw XVIII or whatever in a theater I heard the loudest cheers when a car ran over a woman's face while simultaneously ripping a man's limbs off. With movies like Saw or Final Destination you're supposed to cheer louder when the deaths get more convoluted and bloody. I liked the first Saw, but over time it's gone from "Look at these people trapped in a horrible situation, what will they do to get out?" to "We've devised even more grisly and ridiculous ways to dismember people! This new trap is so gruesome they wouldn't let us put it into the last movie!!  "So to add some content, here's a good psychological thriller:  Natalie Portman did a great job in the lead role. This movie really played on one of my personal fears, which is being so psychotic that one never knows if anything that happens is real or not. And the soundtrack is incredible.
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Jan 30, 2012 05:36
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Dickeye posted:You're not supposed to have that reaction to Hostel. At all. Ever. There's nothing remotely good about any of the Elite Hunting people. They're just rich assholes paying shitloads of money to torture and murder people. Obviously the Elite Hunting people are evil bastards. I'm not saying you're supposed to sympathize with them instead of the protagonists. I'm saying that IMHO the entire appeal of goreporn movies is how bloody and gratuitous the deaths are. The bloodier they are, the better they've fulfilled their purpose. You don't watch them for deep characterization or even to be scared. You basically go to watch people being tortured. Hostel is the quintessential goreporn movie. It had stupid, hateful protagonists and a ridiculous plot, and when it came out, everyone was hyping how DISGUSTING and GRAPHIC it was and how it was making people faint in the theater. Here's another decent psych thriller/horror movie:  The Butterfly Effect: A college student whose childhood was filled with traumatic experiences finds he has the ability to go back in time. He tries to use his new power to fix the lives of his friends and family but only succeeds in unwittingly creating new, terrible problems (hence the title). FourLeaf fucked around with this message at 00:58 on Feb 1, 2012 |
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Jan 31, 2012 03:05
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CzarChasm posted:To anyone watching this movie, please note that there are two endings: The director's cut ending was creepy and disturbing in a way I really didn't see coming and I believe was taken out due to test audience feedback (This was also the ending I saw first). The theatrical ending, comparatively, is toothless and dull as dishwater and not really challenging on any level. Disturbing as I found it, the Director's cut ending is probably the better of the two. I agree with everything said here. The director's cut ending stays with you for a long time.
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Jan 31, 2012 20:24
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NGL posted:Also, it's revealed in a scene cut from the theatrical version that Ashton's mother had had numerous similar, unexplained miscarriages, implying that there's a repeating cycle of Ashton erasing his own existence. There was also a bit where he sees a palmist and is told he doesn't have a life line. I thought it was implying that Evan's whole family line was cursed. He had older siblings who were born with similar time-travel powers, and they went through the same process; trying to fix everyone's lives, eventually realizing their very existence made things worse, then going back in time and killing themselves in the womb.
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Feb 2, 2012 00:28
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Ehud posted:I have no idea where else to post this, so uh, is anyone else surprised at the positive reception that The Gift is getting? It's at 91% on RT, "The Gift is wickedly smart and playfully subversive, challenging the audience's expectations while leaving them leaning on the edges of their seats." I just got back from seeing it. The ads made me think it was going to be a lovely Lifetime-level thriller movie, especially since I didn't see any reviews. In the end I wouldn't say it was great, but I'd give it a B. I think the super positive reviews are because many people, like me, were going in expecting absolute poo poo and were pleasantly surprised. My detailed thoughts are a bit disorganized: - The beginning and middle were actually good. Even though it was obvious from the trailer that the husband (Simon) had done something horrible to his old classmate Gordo, the focus was actually on the wife (Robin) having to find out why Gordo is such a weirdo on her own since her rear end in a top hat husband won't tell her. - This was helped a lot by Rebecca Hall's good performance of dawning horror at realizing what a horrible person her husband was, and still is (though there is one funny moment when she completely loses her American accent during an argument). - There was a very cliche "Evil Demented Gay Man" route the movie looked like it was going to take, but it didn't, much to my relief. - Now the bad stuff. In Acts 1 and 2, Robin is the main character. We see that she has some serious problems of her own, which are brought back by the stress of the Gordo situation, but in the end it makes her determined to find out the truth. But then in Act 3 there's a sudden swerve to focusing on Simon as the main character. - On top of that abrupt change, I really hate plots where a woman is raped (or possibly raped in this case) and the focus is only about how it torments a male character. It's especially bitter because the wife was the protagonist until this point. The movie spends the whole film time alienating her (and us) from Simon, showing that she has no idea about his true nature. So it's simply bizarre to then switch to Simon's perspective, especially for a lame sexist plot. Strangely, the conclusion isn't about Robin's trauma at all, only Simon's, even though Robin was BY FAR the one who got hosed with the most (that's a really unfortunate pun, sorry). At least show her reaction. -I know I sound mad. It didn't ruin the movie completely but it definitely left a sour taste in my mouth. - The movie I saw right before this was Ex Machina, which had really beautiful cinematography and set design. In comparison, this movie's was just bleh.
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Aug 7, 2015 21:48
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AFewBricksShy posted:Can you spoiler what horrible thing he did to Gordo? In high school, Simon bullied Gordo for being "weak," culminating in a lie about seeing Gordo being molested by an older male student. Rumors spread that Gordo was gay. Gordo's homophobic father then tried to burn his son alive.
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Aug 7, 2015 22:04
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Ehud posted:I agree with most of what you guys already said about The Gift, but I was left questioning whether or not he actually raped her. Part of me thinks that Gordo was a decent enough guy that he never would have done something like that, but the other part of me thinks he may have been just "off" enough mentally that he actually did it as a misguided act of kindness towards Robin. When he visits her at the hospital he says something to the effect of, "You're a good person, and good people deserve good things to happen to them" - I wondered if that was him saying, "You're a good person so I gave you the gift of motherhood." - like maybe the issue with them conceiving was with Bateman's character and Gordo stepped in to help her conceive? That would explain why they couldn't conceive for so long and then all of the sudden she gets pregnant after Gordo potentially raped her. Well that probably isn't it because they weren't having trouble with the conception part; the wife successfully became pregnant but then had a miscarriage- the guilt from that likely leading to her drug issues. So it's not like Simon was shooting blanks and Gordo decided to step up to bat or whatever. The troubles with having a baby were with Robin so switching dads wouldn't have helped. I think Gordo saying "good people deserve good things" was simply his way of saying it was good she finally had a baby and was happy. Since she was nice to him, she deserves it.
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Aug 10, 2015 23:11
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MockingQuantum posted:I'm looking for some movie recommendations, and I think this thread is the best spot for me to ask: The Devil's Backbone
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Aug 16, 2015 00:03
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