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I want to talk to you all today about a topic that has fascinated me for nearly 15 years now. The Video Nasty What is a Video Nasty? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_nasty In short, the video nasties were a collection of around 80 films available on VHS that were subject to controversy/censorship/and even prosecution in the UK. However, I tend to use the term video nasty a bit more broadly. For me, the video nasties are films released during the early and middle eras of the VHS boom of the 70s and 80s that existed solely because of the unique disruption the VHS market made in the film industry. Allow me to explain. Beyond Exploitation: The Birth of the Video Nasty I consider it imperative to classify what makes a Video Nasty different from an exploitation film, with which they are often grouped together. The most obvious difference is in method of viewing. Exploitation films were meant to be seen in theatres, while, video nasties, as the title suggests, were instead intended to be viewed on video. In fact, it is the very format of video itself which caused the Video Nasty to be born. To understand this, we have to look at the business of film. In its most reductive form, the purpose of a film is to make more money from the audience than was spent producing the film. The Hollywood model has often been based on the idea that an expensive film can make back its large budget by attracting a large audience. Independent films seek to gather a smaller audience, or awards buzz, to make back its smaller budget. Exploitation films, on their micro budget, sought to make money from curious spectators and theatres hungry for near endless content to put on their screens. However, the key difference between exploitation films and video nasties is this idea of the theatre. The theatre, is, by its nature, a social medium. While the act of viewing a film is often an isolated experience, the presence of others during that viewing creates a sense of social interaction. What this means is that one, as an individual, feels that they are forced to internally justify what they are watching to their peers. This is why porn theatres were so heavily stigmatized. If modern culture has proven anything, its that most people desire to see pornography. However, up until the video market, pornography was not nearly as ever present an industry as now. The reason for this can be pointed to the necessity of watching pornography in a theatre, meaning that one felt their desire for sexual gratification was being put on public display. In addition to the social stigma one feels in a theatre, there is also the reality of regulatory control that existed in films shown in theatres. Quite simply, the limitations for what a film can and cannot show is regulated either by the industry or by law depending on country. What VHS created was a form of social isolation that matched the isolation of the viewing experience. One could interact with the film as a viewer without the concerns of stigma. You could seek what you wanted without worrying about how it appeared to others. This is what birthed the video nasty 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 Video Nasties and the Human Condition The art of the video nasty is in its unapologetic exploration of the Id. By going through a decade of filtration from audiences demanding ever more extreme content, the video nasty soon became a sort of microscope under which the human condition can be explored. One of the big explorations, that I will touch on with more detail later, is the intersection of eroticism and violence. Slasher films have long played with this concept. However, a slasher film is dipping your finger into the lake compared to the video nasty doing a cannon ball. Critics often lambasted the video nasty for being misogynistic, exploitative, morally repugnant, cruel, etc. And they are right. But they miss the point. Art can only grow successful if there is an audience to consume it. The weak critic condemns a film for being repugnant. A strong critic asks why such a repugnant film still finds an audience. The video nasty is an unapologetic exploration of the Id, and what it finds out is very rarely positive. However, that doesn't mean that its wrong. 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. As for everyone else, post your own reviews, your own discussions, talk about films you liked or films you hated. UP NEXT: An analysis of one of my all time favorite films, and genuinely what I consider to be one of the best films ever made: Cannibal Holocaust.
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Dec 26, 2018 20:44
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Included in the Video Nasties should also be most of the CAT 3 Chinese Horror and exploitation films. I think a lot of them though may have been banned after the official list but also because they didn't really play in UK Grindhouses like they did here in the US. I dunno if the UK even had those types of Cinemas. Like I am sure they did but like a shitload of the CAT 3 belong on the Video Nasties list. There's also 3 documentaries that is about 3 hours total that you can watch on the Video Nasties that really goes into the history of them pretty in depth. Video Nasties: Moral Panic, Censorship & Videotape (2010) Video Nasties: Draconian Days (2014) I forget the third one. Hollismason fucked around with this message at 01:36 on Dec 27, 2018 |
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Dec 27, 2018 01:32
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Hollismason posted:Included in the Video Nasties should also be most of the CAT 3 Chinese Horror and exploitation films. I think a lot of them though may have been banned after the official list but also because they didn't really play in UK Grindhouses like they did here in the US. Cat 3 is new to me. Tell the tale.
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Dec 27, 2018 02:46
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I suppose Japanese 'pinku' films could serve as a comparison, given how restricted life is over there.
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Dec 27, 2018 03:00
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Mel Mudkiper posted:Cat 3 is new to me. Tell the tale. Category 3 film are basically films that were made in China during the boom of early 1970s to mid 1990s before the turn over to the Chinese of Hong Kong in 1997. They were usually join production between Hong Kong based film makers like Shaw and Golden Harvest and mainland Chinese film companies. They're basically the Chinese "extreme" horror and graphic violence and nudity. One of the interesting things about CAT 3 was that they were usually paired in lowered class neighborhoods with Black Exploitation films. This is basically where the courtship for use of a unusual word started with the Chinese / Kung Fu film influencing young black artists because you could usually go see a double bill of a Black Exploitation film and Chinese film for one price. This actually kind of led to a cross over of sorts where Kung fu became more common in Black Exploitation films and Chinese film started actually doing more urban gangster type tales. Some good examples of CAT 3 would be Seeding of a Ghost , Boxers Omen, Devil Fetus, The Seventh Curse. Cat 3 was basically NC 17 films that depicted graphic sexual scenes and graphic violence. The thing is that unlike the US the Chinese didn't have a video market "boom" until about a decade later in the late 80s early 90s they were a few years behind the US on that front. Its only since really DVDs that CAT 3 from that era have been started to be "rediscovered" and restored from actual film stock not rips to DVD of VHS. Hollismason fucked around with this message at 05:04 on Dec 27, 2018 |
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Dec 27, 2018 04:59
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The Nasties are an interesting thing to me, my being an American with an interest in UK culture. Basically, what happened was the BBFC had the authority to rate British films (and have those ratings be legally binding to theaters), and deny certification to a film, thus banning it. But at the outset they had no such legal authority over home video. It wasn't in their charter. So there were, at the time, entirely legitimate video releases of films that had been banned in theaters, such as the Texas Chainsaw Massacre. (TCM was a weird case because the BBFC couldn't offer any possible cuts that might be made to make the film acceptable, since the film is actually kind of restrained and doesn't show a lot but instead has this pervasive sleazy vibe.) On top of which, major movie studios were, in the UK as in the US and elsewhere, a bit slow offering movies for home purchase or rental. They didn't like this new medium cutting into their market, they kind of resented it. (And it did eventually kill off the re-release market.) So, you're a consumer, you've got a brand new, very expensive, VHS or Betamax tape recorder. You can tape things off TV, or you can buy prerecorded cassettes. What are your options? There's a small selection of big Hollywood releases. There are bootlegs and such. And there's a very wide, more affordable selection of low budget tapes of cheap horror and sex movies and action flicks and so on. If you're interested in horror or sleaze at all, you have a lot more options. So the market for video horrors flourishes and the British tabloid press- mostly right-wing, in want of something for people to hate- sees a big target. Anytime there's a brutal murder or crime they like to connect it to the video horrors. The Conservatives are in power and this is a good moral issue to whip up outrage/support, it's just a bunch of sleazy punters who like this smut anyway, who cares about them, etc. Suddenly the availability of these sleazy, awful movies is a major moral problem for Britain. The nation must be protected. They had a field day. They actually kept this going long after the passage of the VRA because it was such good copy. Anyway, so, the Video Recordings Act mostly established the authority of the BBFC over video. This was actually important for a couple of reasons, one, it kept the institution relevant- there was no longer an easy way around them. Two, it actually expanded their authority. If the BBFC refused a certificate for a movie, local councils in a city or wherever could still clear a film for limited release in their areas, but since home video didn't have those borders, a film refused certificate couldn't have a video release at all. (There was a case of this in 2002. Last House on the Left got refused once again for general release, and the DVD release was cut, but at least one local council cleared it for theatrical screenings. It was cleared fully in 2006 I think.) One thing I've always thought about all this. The vast majority of this didn't affect the big studios. The companies that had mostly slept on the home video market, and in their delay found the market swamped with cheap horror flicks, didn't lose much from this ever. Arguably, they stood to benefit. Not only did this clear out a bit of the competition- there was now a moral pretext for British police to swoop down on bootleg dealers. If they happened to catch a few illegal copies of The Living Daylights or Back to the Future, so much the better. 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.
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Dec 27, 2018 05:32
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Hollismason posted:Video Nasties: Moral Panic, Censorship & Videotape (2010) The first is especially great and an absolute must watch. Second is decent too, just obviously most of the best stuff had been covered already. Didn’t know about a third... a direct connection to the other two, or just handles the same subject material? If you remember what it is, I’d definitely be interested. Still have fond memories of going to a car boot sale when I was about 17 or so, and chatting to this one dude who had a few horror flicks out who then grabbed a bag of photocopied covered tapes from the back of his car and said ‘can’t really sell these ones, so just have em’. A bunch of classics like Cannibal Holocaust, Nekromantik, and my personal fave - Zombie 90.
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Dec 28, 2018 15:06
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Here's a Letterboxd list of every film labelled Video Nasty. (Plus a few documentaries about them.) There's a few Video Nasties which I don't have much interest in revisiting. I Spit On Your Grave, The Last House on the Left, Slave of the Cannibal God are the big ones. I'm not sure if I'll ever get around to watching Faces of Death. Quite a few of my favorite horror films make the list as well: Dead & Buried, The Evil Dead, Eaten Alive, The Burning, Driller Killer, and of course the Argentos. For those interested in watching along as the write-ups are posted, there is a version of Cannibal Holocaust that only edits out the notorious animal cruelty scenes, which, if I revisit it, would be how I watch it. Hollismason or someone else can specify which version that is.
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Dec 28, 2018 16:20
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My friend said he saw an Arrow print screened in London recently, and it did some kind of mosaiicing to the animal scenes. I’m sure the ‘purists’ will turn their nose at such a thing, but I’ve seen the scenes before and can’t say I have a real desire to see them again. Thanks for the LB list, never thought to look them up on there before. I’m sure my watch %age is wonderfully low, but I can live with that fact based on the fact that so many of the films are utter poo poo anyway.
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Dec 28, 2018 16:33
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Franchescanado posted:Here's a Letterboxd list of every film labelled Video Nasty. (Plus a few documentaries about them.) I believe this is the disk you all want if you want to see Cannibal Holocaust with all the human violence but the animal violence cut out. https://www.blu-ray.com/movies/Cannibal-Holocaust-Blu-ray/30646/ Also I'd really strongly recommend Dr. Butcher, M.D. (this is actually the Joe D'Amato movie Zombie Holocaust) because it's part zombie movie, but also part cannibal goddess sort of movie, but it's also a goofy as hell flick that lacks both the animal cruelty and sexual violence so common in the genre. To that end, stay faaaaar away from Cannibal Ferox for the opposite reasons. Mel Mudkiper posted:If you were lucky enough to be publicly condemned, you stood a chance to make a fortune. I don't believe it made a fortune, but of the movies on the list I think The Driller Killer is the best example of intentionally seeking this out ever. Like to have a movie that good and relatively tame, but then to give it the title The Driller Killer and this cover?  There's quite a few flicks on the list that are Actually Good like that, Dead and Buried, and so on but. On the opposite end, this reminds me my wife found old VHSes of Faces of Deaths 1 through 3 and we never got around to watching them, time to change that I guess. Neo Rasa fucked around with this message at 17:48 on Dec 28, 2018 |
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Dec 28, 2018 17:45
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The Traces of Death series is even more extreme if Faces doesn’t do it for you.
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Dec 28, 2018 17:58
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Neo Rasa posted:There's quite a few flicks on the list that are Actually Good like that, Dead and Buried, and so on but. I break the video nasties I have seen into three categories 1. Accidental Art - Movies like Cannibal Holocaust or I Spit on your Grave 2. Just good movies - Xtro, Evil Dead, Dead and Buried 3. Unforgiveable Dreck - If it ends in "of the dead" or has "zombie" in it probably belongs in here. Looking at you, Oasis of the Zombies. Zombie movies are probably the most hit or miss genre of video nasty. For every good one, like City of the Dead, you get three or four that are almost entirely unwatchable. I am trying to remember which zombie movie it was, but the whole movie they had a dude who was clearly in his 20s playing an 11 year old boy. I kept wondering why the hell they had a grown man playing a child and then at the end of the movie he tries to rape his own mother and I was just like "oh, thats why" Neo Rasa posted:I believe this is the disk you all want if you want to see Cannibal Holocaust with all the human violence but the animal violence cut out. AFAIK most copies have a "no animal cruelty" option. I have to admit though, for reasons that will come up in my next big effort post, that I think you have to watch the animal cruelty scenes to appreciate the film
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Dec 29, 2018 01:21
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Franchescanado posted:Here's a Letterboxd list of every film labelled Video Nasty. (Plus a few documentaries about them. Its actually missing a few, notably Xtro
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Dec 29, 2018 01:26
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Cannibal Holocaust was not accidental. It was a conscious and deliberate reaction to the mondo-film craze, born of Deodato's disgust at movies like Goodbye Uncle Tom.
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Dec 29, 2018 02:40
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Also, the one with the weird "child" is Burial Ground. I actually like that movie, in spite of its... quirks; the zombie makeup is loving amazing.
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Dec 29, 2018 02:41
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LORD OF BOOTY posted:Cannibal Holocaust was not accidental. It was a conscious and deliberate reaction to the mondo-film craze, born of Deodato's disgust at movies like Goodbye Uncle Tom. Its 100% accidental. Cannibal Holocaust is what happens when a bad director tries to make a point and accidentally makes a completely different and much better one. To give you a preview of what I mean: what is the first chronological, in the narrative, depiction of cannibalism?
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Dec 29, 2018 02:49
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It's been ages since I've seen the movie and I have no desire to rewatch it for hopefully pretty obvious reasons, but isn't it after the filmmakers burn the hut down? Every atrocity prior to that point is on the filmmakers, and the natives' "savagery" is pretty bluntly portrayed as reactive and defensive, if I remember correctly.
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Dec 29, 2018 02:56
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Mel Mudkiper posted:Its 100% accidental. Cannibal Holocaust is what happens when a bad director tries to make a point and accidentally makes a completely different and much better one. Nah it was pretty purposeful. Deodato talks about what his motivation for making the film was and other people have weighed in as well. His main motivation was making a film that depicted violence in a documentary style similar to news casts at the time in Italy. During this time the 70s Italy was going through a period of tremendous violence and there were daily news cast of dead bodies especially from various wars in the region he saw his young sons reaction to these news casts and was like " I am going to make that but a movie". Saying its 100% accidental is kind of not understanding the background of the film. Like it's all in the script. He didn't "accidentally" make the film. What he did do is create a exploitation film through exploitation of locals and actors. Art imitates life I guess. Like I don't forgive Deodato's action at all in fact he was attacked on set by one of the actors for the animal killings in the film. He basically forced one actress to perform a sex scene that wasn't in the script she was given and then told her "Well good luck getting out of the loving jungle if you don't". Cannibal Holocaust is a really difficult film to judge because it obviously has this horrible background of how it was made but it's also one of the greatest horror movies ever made and created a entire new genre of film. Like I would put Cannibal Holocaust in the same category and same pedestal as Night of the Living Dead. Hollismason fucked around with this message at 03:14 on Dec 29, 2018 |
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Dec 29, 2018 03:10
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LORD OF BOOTY posted:It's been ages since I've seen the movie and I have no desire to rewatch it for hopefully pretty obvious reasons, but isn't it after the filmmakers burn the hut down? Every atrocity prior to that point is on the filmmakers, and the natives' "savagery" is pretty bluntly portrayed as reactive and defensive, if I remember correctly. Yes, but this inadvertently leads to the biggest unspoken question of the movie, were the Yanamamo cannibals? I argue that they aren't, by complete accident of how Deodato edited his film. Hollismason posted:Nah it was pretty purposeful. Deodato talks about what his motivation for making the film was and other people have weighed in as well. His main motivation was making a film that depicted violence in a documentary style similar to news casts at the time in Italy. During this time the 70s Italy was going through a period of tremendous violence and there were daily news cast of dead bodies especially from various wars in the region he saw his young sons reaction to these news casts and was like " I am going to make that but a movie". Deodato attempted to make two points with his film. 1. The arrogance of "civilization" seeing itself as morally superior to native peoples i.e. the final line "Who are the real cannibals?" 2. The ammoral desire for manufactured violence in media However, he bungled these two points. In the end, that turned out to be to his benefit however. Because the two points he ended up actually making are much more interesting. 1. The colonialist romance of the dark and forbidden jungle, and the wholly mythological concept of "tribal cannibals" as a personification of the romance. 2. The direct criticism of the audience for participating in the perpetuation of violence by watching the movie itself. For the first point, Deodata likely "intended" for the end to be seen as the cannibals defending themselves. But it never calls into question whether they actually were cannibals. I would argue the Yanamamo were never cannibals, because cannibals don't exist. Colonists just invented the idea as a way to de-humanize indigenous peoples. They are savage, and what is more savage than cannibalism? However, Deodato went into his film wholly believing that myth to be reality. Deodato accidentally makes himself the filmmakers in the movie. He goes with the expectation of cannibals, and invents them for his movie. Note that the tribe never resorts to cannibalism until the very end. This is because cannibalism was not their natural state. Instead, they were taught, violently and abusively, how to BE cannibals so the filmmakers could more exciting footage. The violence at the end is doubly ironic not only because their cruelty caused their own deaths, but because the fate they suffered was entirely from things they taught the Yanamamo to do. They weren't killed by cannibals. They were killed by tribesmen who were taught how to be cannibals. As for the second point, I feel that Deodato bungled into the same kind of meta-filmmaking that Michael Haneke perfect with his Funny Games films. The true judgement cast by the film is not on the media, or on society, or on the West. The condemnation is cast directly at the audience for watching the movie. This is why the animal torture scenes are so essential to the viewing experience. These animals were tortured and killed, on camera, to give you sitting at home the thrill of seeing it happen. Even if you relent and get the "edited" version, you still have to face the fact that the escalation of explicit gore that you patronize by watching this movie created an ultimate reality where the atrocities were carried out in your name. And again, Deodato didn't intend for this, but there it is. He wanted to make a broad criticism of society and media, but ended up making a criticism of you Mel Mudkiper fucked around with this message at 03:14 on Dec 29, 2018 |
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Dec 29, 2018 03:12
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Its absolutely purposeful. Even from interviews at the time he says his motivation for creating the film was a depiction of media as a monster and to show something that was "real". The animal deaths were actually put in through producer demand but Deodato went along with it whole heartedly but also kind of as a " Yeah no animals die that's what happens when you eat them". Hollismason fucked around with this message at 03:21 on Dec 29, 2018 |
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Dec 29, 2018 03:17
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Hollismason posted:Cannibal Holocaust is a really difficult film to judge because it obviously has this horrible background of how it was made but it's also one of the greatest horror movies ever made and created a entire new genre of film. Like I would put Cannibal Holocaust in the same category and same pedestal as Night of the Living Dead. I don't really consider Cannibal Holocaust a horror movie anymore than I consider Funny Games a thriller. Hollismason posted:Its absolutely purposeful. Even from interviews at the time he says his motivation for creating the film was a depiction of media as a monster and to show something that "real". That's what he tried to do, but what he did was something deeper, wholly by accident. He wanted to condemn media, but ultimately condemned the audience, which is a much more interesting outcome. Hollismason posted:The animal deaths were actually put in through producer demand but Deodato went along with it whole heartedly but also kind of as a " Yeah no animals die that's what happens when you eat them". I don't see how this contradicts any of my points Mel Mudkiper fucked around with this message at 03:22 on Dec 29, 2018 |
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Dec 29, 2018 03:17
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That's an opinion on the film not a true actual thing. Like yeah the film does indict the audience but it does a lot of things and can be seen from a lot of different viewpoints. It's just as much a indictment on toxic masculinity as it is on audience consumption , capitalism, whatever else you wanna put into that film. That's what makes it such a great film is there are multiple layer to the film from colonialism to mass consumption of media. Just like Night of the Living Dead can be viewed as a destruction of the Nuclear Family , Racism, and Capitalism. It's 100% a horror movie. Hollismason fucked around with this message at 03:26 on Dec 29, 2018 |
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Dec 29, 2018 03:22
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Hollismason posted:That's an opinion on the film not a true actual thing. Nothing in art is true or actual Hollismason posted:Like yeah the film does indict the audience but it does a lot of things and can be seen from a lot of different viewpoints. It's just as much a indictment on toxic masculinity as it is on audience consumption , capitalism, whatever else you wanna put into that film. Of course any film can be interpreted in any number of ways, I simply argue this interpretation provides the richest experience in analyzing the film.
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Dec 29, 2018 03:25
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I think Funny Games isn't a horror movie but that's a long stretch of road you are gonna have to travel to say Cannibal Holocaust is not a horror movie. You talk about accidentally creating a movie that indicts the audience but really all your saying is " This is my viewpoint of this film". It's not like Funny Games which purposefully goes out of its way to indict the audience and was made and stated by the director to be a gently caress you to people who like horror movies.
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Dec 29, 2018 03:29
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Hollismason posted:You talk about accidentally creating a movie that indicts the audience but really all your saying is " This is my viewpoint of this film". Uh, yes? Hollismason posted:It's not like Funny Games which purposefully goes out of its way to indict the audience and was made and stated by the director to be a gently caress you to people who like horror movies. I am a firm and unapologetic believer that authorial intent is irrelevant in criticism. It does not matter if Haneke was deliberate and Deodato was accidental when the same outcome is produced.
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Dec 29, 2018 03:33
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It's not a invalid critique of the film but it's not a absolute and you can't really speak in absolutes when you critique things so you should not. It's like saying " It was 100% accidental that Night of the Living Dead has racial undertones". It wasn't really accidental. It was just he was the best actor they reviewed and then Romero afterwards was like "Oh holy poo poo this gonna drive people wild". edit: The UK Edit has no animals deaths that' the version you want it has a run time is 6 minutes less so 1 hour and 32 minutes. So if you see a copy that is 92 minutes then that's probably the version that has no animals deaths. You can still buy it. https://www.movie-censorship.com/report.php?ID=664349 That website is also good for telling what version of a video nasty you have because some are still edited. Hollismason fucked around with this message at 03:52 on Dec 29, 2018 |
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Dec 29, 2018 03:44
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Hollismason posted:It's not a invalid critique of the film but it's not a absolute and you can't really speak in absolutes when you critique things so you should not. I don't think that's a fair comparison because we are talking about an initially inadvertent decision that was then experimented with once it was uncovered, which is not what I am referring to. Like, maybe Romero didn't intend for the racial allegory immediately when he cast Ben, but you cannot tell me the final images of the film were not made to be deliberately provocative once he was cast. What I am referring to here, however, is that there are elements of the film that can be pointed to as conscious by the film-maker that certainly make it notable i.e. the realistic violence, the found footage aesthetic, the media reflexitivity. I acknowledge those elements are there, and that they certainly are a large part of the reason why the film is remembered as opposed to the other cannibal and mondo films of the era. But what I am specifically referring to are the things that I see in the film that elevate it from "very good/significant horror movie" into "one of the best films ever". And these are elements in the film i.e. colonial romanticism, audience condemnation, etc. that exist in the product despite the author's intent. These are elements of the film as a product, not as a production, that I think elevate it above its peers. You seem to be responding as if I am saying the movie being good is an accident. It isn't. The movie being good is the result of authorial craftsmanship. What I am saying is accidental is the elements of the final product that elevate it from "good" to "masterpiece".
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Dec 29, 2018 04:05
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Yeah I understand what you are saying but the indictment of the audience by Deodato is not accidental. There's interviews with him during the making of the movie and for the last like 30 years where he talks about it ( or rather his son responds to interview requests lol ) . Like there's dozens of interviews out there where he talks about making the film as a indictment of the media and horror movie audiences. Just like Night of the Living Dead racial undertone are not accidental. It was a accident I guess that he happened to come by and be cast but afterwards Romero and the producers totally knew what they were doing. Hollismason fucked around with this message at 04:17 on Dec 29, 2018 |
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Dec 29, 2018 04:13
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Hollismason posted:Yeah I understand what you are saying but the indictment of the audience by Deodato is not accidental. You said earlier Deodato didn't want to put in the animal torture scenes and, as I recall, later on he even referred to them as a "mistake" Maybe he intended to condemn the audience, but I don't think the precision of the condemnation was entirely conscious. The animals were consciously killed to give illicit thrill, the fact the movie accuses you of being complicit in the death is a result of the product, not the author. Hollismason posted:Like there's dozens of interviews out there where he talks about making the film as a indictment of the media and horror movie audiences. I feel like you are missing my point. I am not saying the film is a condemnation of film audiences or the media. I am saying the film is a condemnation of you
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Dec 29, 2018 04:16
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In later interviews he stated he regretted putting them in but at the time he was making it they'd only put in one or two and then the producer were like " Love it put in more animals being murdered" and he was like "Sure". This was also what led to one of the actors fighting him. Like his whole thing about the animal killings in the film is he doesn't see why they're offensive and why people now get offended by it because at the time he was like " This is normal this is how you eat animals you kill them". He just had a different viewpoint of it. Now he was kind of like " Eh.. maybe I shouldn't have but at that time that wasn't that big a deal I don't think". Also, the animals were eaten (according to him). Mel Mudkiper posted:You said earlier Deodato didn't want to put in the animal torture scenes and, as I recall, later on he even referred to them as a "mistake" While I have met Deodato and seen him speak at conventions during the brief moments he was off stage and left he did not mention me specifically so I think the man bears me no ill will. Hollismason fucked around with this message at 04:28 on Dec 29, 2018 |
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Dec 29, 2018 04:18
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Hollismason posted:In later interviews he stated he regretted putting them in but at the time he was making it they'd only put in one or two and then the producer were like " Love it put in more animals being murdered" and he was like "Sure". This was also what led to one of the actors fighting him. Did he go "sure, because I want each audience member to be explicitly and personally condemned by the film for watching it because by the simple act of consumption we consciously patronize actual cruelty as entertainment" or did he just go "sure." Hollismason posted:Like his whole thing about the animal killings in the film is he doesn't see why they're offensive and why people now get offended by it because at the time he was like " This is normal this is how you eat animals you kill them". So then why are you arguing the condemnation in those scenes is deliberate?
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Dec 29, 2018 04:20
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Mel Mudkiper posted:And these are elements in the film i.e. colonial romanticism, audience condemnation, etc. that exist in the product despite the author's intent.  There's no way this shot is an accident. They knew exactly what they were doing.
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Dec 29, 2018 04:23
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Samuel Clemens posted:
I feel we are talking about two different concepts of audience the "its awful that people watch this horrible stuff as entertainment, and I critique that" is absolutely deliberate and conscious But I am not talking about condemnation of the audience as concept I am not saying the accidental part is "its gross that we as the audience want to see real life blood and violence so much we even manufacture it" I am saying the accidental part, that I find interesting, is that the film is going "how dare you, you personally, watch me, this film Cannibal Holocaust, right now"
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Dec 29, 2018 04:26
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Samuel Clemens posted:
That shot was actually created by a strange confluence of events where these men initially had come in to review the sound and picture of the theater. By chance a camera was set up and rolling. Afterwards Deodato realized the run time was too short for the film and just grabbed some nearby footage and spliced it into the movie which just so happened to be that footage. So yes 100% accident.
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Dec 29, 2018 04:30
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LORD OF BOOTY posted:Also, the one with the weird "child" is Burial Ground. I actually like that movie, in spite of its... quirks; the zombie makeup is loving amazing. Burial Ground owns and it’s soundtrack sounds like a dying computer. Everyone should watch Burial Ground. Mel Mudkiper posted:I kept wondering why the hell they had a grown man playing a child and then at the end of the movie he tries to rape his own mother and I was just like "oh, thats why" He does not try and rape his mother. He is a zombie and eats her titty. I would say it’s the highlight of the film but really that’s the make shift guillotine beheading that the zombies perform using a scythe and a window.
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Dec 29, 2018 04:48
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Windows 98 posted:He does not try and rape his mother. He is a zombie and eats her titty. Admittedly its been awhile
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Dec 29, 2018 04:49
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Mel Mudkiper posted:Admittedly its been awhile The reason you probably remembered it that way is because the “kid” (Peter) And his mother have a VERY uncomfortable quasi sexual relationship and he sucks on her titty earlier in the film. It’s crazy weird. Especially since the film presents it as completely normal and not weird at all.
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Dec 29, 2018 04:53
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Windows 98 posted:Especially since the film presents it as completely normal and not weird at all. Weird sex poo poo presented as perfectly normal and not weird at all is basically the modus operandi for video nasties. Windows 98 posted:The reason you probably remembered it that way is because the “kid” (Peter) And his mother have a VERY uncomfortable quasi sexual relationship and he sucks on her titty earlier in the film. Yeah it mostly sticks with me because I kept wondering why they hired a grown man to play a child and then he sucks a titty and its like "oh!"
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Dec 29, 2018 04:55
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For anyone going “hey what’s probably the most hateful and brutal film on the video nasties list” my vote has to go to Gestapo’s Last Orgy.
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Dec 29, 2018 05:02
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Windows 98 posted:For anyone going “hey what’s probably the most hateful and brutal film on the video nasties list” my vote has to go to Gestapo’s Last Orgy. pretty sure thats the movie that broke me Its hosed up when you have to watch Salo to wash the taste out of your mouth
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Dec 29, 2018 05:04
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