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W
its a movie we watch to be entertained, scared, laugh, cry or grossed out not to have some mind changing revelation that the morale of the story gave us. about movies always have a message well yer i guess any one can make up one lets say back to the future the message if you go back in time dont touch anything just go back to your time line if you cant then find someone who will know how to help you. dawn of the dead moral is "run barricade yourself and aim for the head".
It might amuse you a little to know I also review children's cartoons lol.
I'm sorry you find the excuse of, "It's not real," as lame, but honestly that's a big part of why most of those movies don't bother me. I've been around real violence, I've been around real horror myself. When you've had it happen, suddenly the imaginary is too fake to take as seriously as real violence. It might bother you a bit but in the end you know it's fake. Keep in mind no two people are alike, so where some people can stomach their horror, others can't, and there's nothing wrong with that. Some people can stomach Twilight. And to make Twilight relevant to the "Why would you watch something disturbing?" topic, remember that aside from werewolves and vampires, it also depicts the mental breakdown of a teenage girl that by the second book goes down an extremely self-destructive path just to make her ex boyfriend notice her. I for one cannot stomach Twilight because I find the premise ridiculous and the love story cliche. Does that make one of us right and the other wrong? No, it just means we have different tastes. We are unique creatures, we should embrace it.
The other reason I got into these movies is because they all have stories behind them, and researching their history is honestly more fun than the movies themselves, which is part of what I do on the blog. I've come across ones that have been banned all over the world for various reasons, I've had ones that got directors killed and others that lead them to have to prove to a federal court that they did not murder their cast while making their movies. Being a fan of true-crime, researching this is a lot of fun for me. In fact this reason is usually the biggest for why I got into these types of films.
I do agree that all movies have messages in them, however I feel many of them are dependent on how the viewer interprets them. Some of the movies I listed before were designed to have a message, or so the directors claimed, but in the end the only message they gave was, "I wanna disturb and make my audience feel as uncomfortable as I can."
The porn analogy is invalid because that's not fake, those people really are naked and having sex, and if the wife believes that watching porn is the same as having an actual affair in your mind, like many Christians do, then thaty gives her fair grounds to get a little cranky with him.
I agree with your ex that Saw is more of a thriller than a horror. Saw was designed to make you think (well at least the first one was, I can't say the same for the sequels). Each of the victims in the movies are captured for various reasons, usually ones revolving around the fact that they had wasted their lives and they now had to either man up and prove they were "worth living" by saving themselves, or let themselves die. I put "worth living" in quotes because I know people will argue that that's not how you determine that, however that's how the character, Jigsaw, determined it. Horror movies tend to be more about fear of things you can't prevent like Freddy Krueger, Michael Meyers, or any other great slasher villains, but I'm getting off topic.
I would not consider Passion of the Christ horror. Just because it's bloody does not make it horror. If it did then the Bible itself could be considered a horror story (see the story of the Man and his Concubine if you don't believe me). If anything I guess you could say it falls under the "Historical/Religious" category.
As for your question on what messages other horror movies have, I already answered this question above and since this response is rather lengthy I'll refrain from repeating myself.
I'm sorry you find the excuse of, "It's not real," as lame, but honestly that's a big part of why most of those movies don't bother me. I've been around real violence, I've been around real horror myself. When you've had it happen, suddenly the imaginary is too fake to take as seriously as real violence. It might bother you a bit but in the end you know it's fake. Keep in mind no two people are alike, so where some people can stomach their horror, others can't, and there's nothing wrong with that. Some people can stomach Twilight. And to make Twilight relevant to the "Why would you watch something disturbing?" topic, remember that aside from werewolves and vampires, it also depicts the mental breakdown of a teenage girl that by the second book goes down an extremely self-destructive path just to make her ex boyfriend notice her. I for one cannot stomach Twilight because I find the premise ridiculous and the love story cliche. Does that make one of us right and the other wrong? No, it just means we have different tastes. We are unique creatures, we should embrace it.
The other reason I got into these movies is because they all have stories behind them, and researching their history is honestly more fun than the movies themselves, which is part of what I do on the blog. I've come across ones that have been banned all over the world for various reasons, I've had ones that got directors killed and others that lead them to have to prove to a federal court that they did not murder their cast while making their movies. Being a fan of true-crime, researching this is a lot of fun for me. In fact this reason is usually the biggest for why I got into these types of films.
I do agree that all movies have messages in them, however I feel many of them are dependent on how the viewer interprets them. Some of the movies I listed before were designed to have a message, or so the directors claimed, but in the end the only message they gave was, "I wanna disturb and make my audience feel as uncomfortable as I can."
The porn analogy is invalid because that's not fake, those people really are naked and having sex, and if the wife believes that watching porn is the same as having an actual affair in your mind, like many Christians do, then thaty gives her fair grounds to get a little cranky with him.
I agree with your ex that Saw is more of a thriller than a horror. Saw was designed to make you think (well at least the first one was, I can't say the same for the sequels). Each of the victims in the movies are captured for various reasons, usually ones revolving around the fact that they had wasted their lives and they now had to either man up and prove they were "worth living" by saving themselves, or let themselves die. I put "worth living" in quotes because I know people will argue that that's not how you determine that, however that's how the character, Jigsaw, determined it. Horror movies tend to be more about fear of things you can't prevent like Freddy Krueger, Michael Meyers, or any other great slasher villains, but I'm getting off topic.
I would not consider Passion of the Christ horror. Just because it's bloody does not make it horror. If it did then the Bible itself could be considered a horror story (see the story of the Man and his Concubine if you don't believe me). If anything I guess you could say it falls under the "Historical/Religious" category.
As for your question on what messages other horror movies have, I already answered this question above and since this response is rather lengthy I'll refrain from repeating myself.
R
I'm actually kinda surprised that since I joined this site over a year ago only a single person has ever chewed me out for 'glorifying' the most epic film of all-time: SCARFACE, the 1983 Al Pacino gangster classic. This film is notorious for its extreme violence and vulgarity and yet only one person has ever gotten on my case about it from this site.
WARNING again - some MOVIE SPOILERS here...
I saw The Girl Next Door too. It was really disturbing and they did add a few things to the real story but still the real story was just as horrifying in my opinion. The only things they added was the neighbor boy, the one scene which went beyond description (I won't even say it in an atheist's forum), and the part where they raped her. All the other stuff really happened.
It really disturbed me to the point that I spent a lot of time researching online about the real case, the girl, what happened to the perpetrators and where the rest of her family is now. Can you believe that at least one of those boys, and I think the daughter too is still alive and out of jail??? At least they dedicated a park to Sylvia Likens. Her sister Jenny just died a few years ago from a heart attack. I can't imagine how she managed to deal with those horrible memories all these years. They said that many people accused her for not trying to call the police, but she was just a kid and she was afraid they'd do to her what they did to Sylvia.
I saw The Girl Next Door too. It was really disturbing and they did add a few things to the real story but still the real story was just as horrifying in my opinion. The only things they added was the neighbor boy, the one scene which went beyond description (I won't even say it in an atheist's forum), and the part where they raped her. All the other stuff really happened.
It really disturbed me to the point that I spent a lot of time researching online about the real case, the girl, what happened to the perpetrators and where the rest of her family is now. Can you believe that at least one of those boys, and I think the daughter too is still alive and out of jail??? At least they dedicated a park to Sylvia Likens. Her sister Jenny just died a few years ago from a heart attack. I can't imagine how she managed to deal with those horrible memories all these years. They said that many people accused her for not trying to call the police, but she was just a kid and she was afraid they'd do to her what they did to Sylvia.
WARNING again - some MOVIE SPOILERS here...
I saw The Girl Next Door too. It was really disturbing and they did add a few things to the real story but still the real story was just as horrifying in my opinion. The only things they added was the neighbor boy, the one scene which went beyond description (I won't even say it in an atheist's forum), and the part where they raped her. All the other stuff really happened.
It really disturbed me to the point that I spent a lot of time researching online about the real case, the girl, what happened to the perpetrators and where the rest of her family is now. Can you believe that at least one of those boys, and I think the daughter too is still alive and out of jail??? At least they dedicated a park to Sylvia Likens. Her sister Jenny just died a few years ago from a heart attack. I can't imagine how she managed to deal with those horrible memories all these years. They said that many people accused her for not trying to call the police, but she was just a kid and she was afraid they'd do to her what they did to Sylvia.
I saw The Girl Next Door too. It was really disturbing and they did add a few things to the real story but still the real story was just as horrifying in my opinion. The only things they added was the neighbor boy, the one scene which went beyond description (I won't even say it in an atheist's forum), and the part where they raped her. All the other stuff really happened.
It really disturbed me to the point that I spent a lot of time researching online about the real case, the girl, what happened to the perpetrators and where the rest of her family is now. Can you believe that at least one of those boys, and I think the daughter too is still alive and out of jail??? At least they dedicated a park to Sylvia Likens. Her sister Jenny just died a few years ago from a heart attack. I can't imagine how she managed to deal with those horrible memories all these years. They said that many people accused her for not trying to call the police, but she was just a kid and she was afraid they'd do to her what they did to Sylvia.
I'm not as outraged that they're out of jail as I was when I read that Gertrude was eventually released. That woman needed to stay locked up either in jail or an insane asylum. There's a heartbreaking scene in "An American Crime" after Sylvia is already dead and Gertrude has just been locked in her cell, and she sits down on the bench and Sylvia appears in front of her, just standing there and staring at her like she just wanted to ask, "Why?" I know it's totally meant to be a fictitious scene but it was probably one of the more powerful ones and it was so simple too.
R
I will say this tho... since I got saved nearly 4 months ago, movies that feature explicit sex scenes or even suggestive and flirtatious behavior now bother me in ways that hasn't happened before. I used to just not really care about that stuff in film and now it's like whenever I see it or hear it I turn away or change the channel. Guess it's God working on me' huh?
You went into it not knowing that Alexander the Great was gay didn't you? lol.
This actually reminded me of yet another movie I do not recommend: Brokeback Mountain.
-SPOILERS-
So many things were wrong with this movie. And I'm not even talking about the homosexual content, but the plot itself was just ridiculous. Two cowboys go to watch sheep in the mountains. They barely look at or talk to each other for a few days, then one night they suddenly have sex. It's so ridiculously random that even people who try to praise this film can't justify that. And from that point on they're addicted to each other. The rest of the plot is the two of them complaining about their lives followed by extremely long intervals of nothing happening, and finally one of them dies and the finds out his daughter is about to get married and he's invited to the wedding. The end.
The fact that homosexuality is a pretty big issue these days, you'd really have to try to screw up portraying the prejudices a homosexual may face. What prejudices do they face in the movie? They get fired and told to never come back by their boss who spotted them frolicking while shirtless and ignoring the sheep causing not only a significant chunk of the flock to die, but some of the sheep they bring back aren't even from the original flock. Yeah he must be a homophobe for wanting people to DO THEIR JOB rather than see how much "not gay" man sex they can have (oh yeah, during these events in the mountains they both claim they're not gay, even after they start having sex). The other "prejudice" they face is when Ledger's character gets dumped by his wife who surprisingly spotted him making out with his boyfriend, despite they were in the very well hidden FRONT OF THE HOUSE. Yeah that monster, how dare you leave your husband for infidelity.
The only remotely believable moment is when the boyfriend gets killed because he is gay, but even that was a ridiculous scene because of how Ledger finds out. He calls up the wife to find out what happened and she casually tells him that while inflating a tire the rim broke off and nailed him in the head and he drowned in his own blood. The scene cuts to what's playing out in Leger's mind as he somehow pieces together from that that his boyfriend was beaten to death by a homophobic gang with crowbars. Yeah he got that from that. Wow. That is a lot to buy, movie. Also the wives you could tell were intentionally written to be dull, dry, uninteresting characters... actually pretty much every female in this movie was either written as dull or obnoxious. And you could tell it was done to make the relationship between the two cowboys look better by comparison, but seriously you have to really really work at it to turn Anne Hathaway into a boring useless character.
The movie is over 2 HOURS LONG which was far more time than it needed to be. Nothing happens through the bulk of it, and whenever something does happen it's either sloppily written, or incredibly ridiculous. So glad Heath Ledger had managed to get in "Candy", and "Dark Knight" before he passed away otherwise this cinematic tombstone would be a disappointing remnant of what was actually a great actor.
This actually reminded me of yet another movie I do not recommend: Brokeback Mountain.
-SPOILERS-
So many things were wrong with this movie. And I'm not even talking about the homosexual content, but the plot itself was just ridiculous. Two cowboys go to watch sheep in the mountains. They barely look at or talk to each other for a few days, then one night they suddenly have sex. It's so ridiculously random that even people who try to praise this film can't justify that. And from that point on they're addicted to each other. The rest of the plot is the two of them complaining about their lives followed by extremely long intervals of nothing happening, and finally one of them dies and the finds out his daughter is about to get married and he's invited to the wedding. The end.
The fact that homosexuality is a pretty big issue these days, you'd really have to try to screw up portraying the prejudices a homosexual may face. What prejudices do they face in the movie? They get fired and told to never come back by their boss who spotted them frolicking while shirtless and ignoring the sheep causing not only a significant chunk of the flock to die, but some of the sheep they bring back aren't even from the original flock. Yeah he must be a homophobe for wanting people to DO THEIR JOB rather than see how much "not gay" man sex they can have (oh yeah, during these events in the mountains they both claim they're not gay, even after they start having sex). The other "prejudice" they face is when Ledger's character gets dumped by his wife who surprisingly spotted him making out with his boyfriend, despite they were in the very well hidden FRONT OF THE HOUSE. Yeah that monster, how dare you leave your husband for infidelity.
The only remotely believable moment is when the boyfriend gets killed because he is gay, but even that was a ridiculous scene because of how Ledger finds out. He calls up the wife to find out what happened and she casually tells him that while inflating a tire the rim broke off and nailed him in the head and he drowned in his own blood. The scene cuts to what's playing out in Leger's mind as he somehow pieces together from that that his boyfriend was beaten to death by a homophobic gang with crowbars. Yeah he got that from that. Wow. That is a lot to buy, movie. Also the wives you could tell were intentionally written to be dull, dry, uninteresting characters... actually pretty much every female in this movie was either written as dull or obnoxious. And you could tell it was done to make the relationship between the two cowboys look better by comparison, but seriously you have to really really work at it to turn Anne Hathaway into a boring useless character.
The movie is over 2 HOURS LONG which was far more time than it needed to be. Nothing happens through the bulk of it, and whenever something does happen it's either sloppily written, or incredibly ridiculous. So glad Heath Ledger had managed to get in "Candy", and "Dark Knight" before he passed away otherwise this cinematic tombstone would be a disappointing remnant of what was actually a great actor.
it seems very strange to me that you are pointing out "unchristian" movies, when in fact no movie expresses a true christian message. Movies are a reflection of the world they are made in, not the ideal that we should be living. To anyone who looks for movies to be Christian in this century i suggest you stop looking. Perhaps adaptations of Dickens and Shakespeare, such as other classics MIGHT fit a christian way of thinking, christianity is shut out of the modern culture almost entirely.
Dickens and Shakespeare? Well I never read much Dickens so I can't really get into that to be fair, but have you ever actually read Shakespeare?
In the opening of Romeo and Juliet the Montegue servants are walking the streets and talking about how they'd like to one day break into the Capulet's home so they can raid and pillage while raping the maids. In the beginning of Macbeth, Macbeth is cutting open one of the enemy soldiers from neck to crotch while his uncle is watching and praising him. In Hamlet there's a scene where Hamlet approaches Ophelia, asking if he can lay in her lap and she says no. He then asks if he can lay his head in her lap and she says yes. He makes a comment about how fair it is to lay between a woman's legs and she claims she has no idea what he's talking about. And in The Tragedy of Julius Caesar, Brutus' wife commits suicide by swallowing red hot coals.
If that's the Christian way of thinking I definitely went to the wrong church as a kid.
In the opening of Romeo and Juliet the Montegue servants are walking the streets and talking about how they'd like to one day break into the Capulet's home so they can raid and pillage while raping the maids. In the beginning of Macbeth, Macbeth is cutting open one of the enemy soldiers from neck to crotch while his uncle is watching and praising him. In Hamlet there's a scene where Hamlet approaches Ophelia, asking if he can lay in her lap and she says no. He then asks if he can lay his head in her lap and she says yes. He makes a comment about how fair it is to lay between a woman's legs and she claims she has no idea what he's talking about. And in The Tragedy of Julius Caesar, Brutus' wife commits suicide by swallowing red hot coals.
If that's the Christian way of thinking I definitely went to the wrong church as a kid.
This is not a fantasy life. this is a real and brutal existance that no one can ignore. most "christian" themed movies ignore entirely the fact that the world is evil. Shakespeare has no illusions as to the pityable condition of this fallen world. Shakespeare and Dickens paint a trueer portrait of the world we live in. The underlying themes of their work are truly Christian. Look at what happens in these plays to the ones who work evil, the message being that passion destroys men and women. That is the message of Christ.