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I just sampled Penny Dreadful. Cut because potential slight spoilers. I had medium hopes - most TV horror is ... well, like this.
When did Horror as a genre become just gore, vomit, excessive violence, close-ups of pus and maggots and innards, people fucking like dogs (as opposed to having sex) and lusting after children?
This is not horror. This is disgusting. Things that generate disgust in mankind are not horror. Close-ups of someone vomiting, or of someone's suppurating wounds, is disgusting. It is not, however, horror in the literary/artistic sense. Horror is psychological at its best. Graphic violence isn't horror just because it's extreme, or committed by vampires or something.
The show is dark for the sake of dark. Everyone is disgusting or freakish, which makes this kind of "horror" quite easy. You know, the only scene that struck me as effective horror was at the very beginning, when a woman on a toilet was snatched by ... god knows what. It happens in an instant, with only a hint of warning, and with no idea of why or what will happen to her. That is horror. The rest of it is just gore, just vomit-porn.
When did Horror as a genre become just gore, vomit, excessive violence, close-ups of pus and maggots and innards, people fucking like dogs (as opposed to having sex) and lusting after children?
This is not horror. This is disgusting. Things that generate disgust in mankind are not horror. Close-ups of someone vomiting, or of someone's suppurating wounds, is disgusting. It is not, however, horror in the literary/artistic sense. Horror is psychological at its best. Graphic violence isn't horror just because it's extreme, or committed by vampires or something.
The show is dark for the sake of dark. Everyone is disgusting or freakish, which makes this kind of "horror" quite easy. You know, the only scene that struck me as effective horror was at the very beginning, when a woman on a toilet was snatched by ... god knows what. It happens in an instant, with only a hint of warning, and with no idea of why or what will happen to her. That is horror. The rest of it is just gore, just vomit-porn.
no subject
Date: 25 March 2017 12:03 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 25 March 2017 04:05 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 25 March 2017 06:23 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 25 March 2017 01:05 pm (UTC)I did enjoy The Woman in Black, but those types of movies are far and few between.
no subject
Date: 25 March 2017 03:05 pm (UTC)You know the scariest scenes I've ever seen? No blood, no gore, no violence, no nudity. The scene in Hell House where they gather around the record player to hear the dead owner's recording welcoming them, and Roddy McDowell says, "Our attention was on that [the record player] just now. How do you know he didn't walk right past us?"
The scene in Exorcist III (not, overall, a good movie) that I won't say more about except that it's been extensively written about because it is blood-curdlingly terrifying without showing one drop of blood, one lick of violence, one naked body, one close up of anything vomitous. It lasts maybe two seconds. Every hair on your body stands up. That is horror. That is art.
This crap doesn't give you chills and make you look behind you when you're watching it alone. It makes you want to throw up. That isn't horror.
no subject
Date: 30 March 2017 12:58 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 30 March 2017 04:10 pm (UTC)