Debate: Is gore really horror?
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HockeyFace
Ok I was wondering. Is gore really horror? Honestly gore isn't scary, it's disgusting. Also many horror movies can be scary without gore (ie: Halloween, Exorcist, etc.). Gore is ok in horror films, but sometimes it gets out of hand. What do you guys think? Please present a reasonable argument.
Aesma
Gore is just a subgenre of Horror where the bloody messy parts just gets overdone that if its not cheesy it makes a good horror film since it would inspire fear and such.
Striel
Too much gore is annoying. Example: Dead Alive
BackFire
"gore isn't scary, it's disgusting."
That about sums it up, some of the best horror films don't try to actually scare you as much as they try to disgust and disturb you, and gore is a good way to do both.
Of course, if a movie has simple gore in it, it is not automatically a horror movie, some of the goriest and most disturbing films I've ever seen aren't horror (Irreversible, I Stand Alone)
samhain
Gore can also provide the difference between a good horror movie and a great one. Imagine the evil dead series if it didn't have the high gore factor. Maybe it wouldn't be a bad film but an inferior one nonetheless.
Michael Myers 1
well halloween doesnt have alot of gore in some of the movies and i think its a great movie
samhain
I'm not saying gore should be used in every movie I'm just saying that it can help a movie.
Michael Myers 1
true that would make halloween alot cooler
h0ck3yh0rr0r
gore is humor.
zombieman
Gore horrifies some people so therefore its horror! The two often come hand in hand anyway.
Punker69
HEY BACKFIRE.I agree i got really disturbed in bad boys 2 because it had so much gore.Therefore gore can be disturbing.And make a movie a better one.
Dagons Blade
Post of the day! Gore is used to revolt people, and it's not scary..horror and being scared have more to do with atmosphere and story, not with a pile of limbs or a zombiewith a mouthful of flesh...imo anyway.
Punker69
I appreciate any movie that has alot of outstanding gore.
slashwristbarbi
I think a little gore can be good in a film, a lot is just boring cos its the same thing, and too much just makes the film funny and not scary
Nastybutlerbob
Someone needs to see cannibal holocaust. Thats you slashwristbarbi. Cannibal Holocaust is proof that Gore in excessive amounts can be artistic. First Off, Two live animals are killed on screen, if that unsettles you then dont listen to me. Scondly, the human gore is so realistic, including male genital dismemberment, violent rape with foreign objects, primitive abortion, and lots of dangling savage penises. Now i did get a chuckle or two out of it but all in all it completely unsettled me (which no film has ever done) and made me think. You have to watch it several times to get the full effect and intent of the film. The first time no matter how hard you try, the visuals will take over. The second time though when your bowels can handle the story it will really leave some interesting questions circing your head. I think everyone here should check it out with an open mind of course.
The Nasty Butler.
Nastybutlerbob
I forgot to mention, gore isn't always campy and fun a la Evil dead and Dead Alive. Films like the old Italian Cannibal films such as Cannibal Holocaust and New indie underground shit like AUgust underground takes Gore and vomits it into your lap with the disgusting brute force of reality. So gore in this manner is truly frightening because it is fed to the viewer in a very realistic manner.
slashwristbarbi
Certainly will check out Cannibal Holocaust. But I think it depends on how the gore is handled in a film. What you described does sound disturbing, but I think in a lot of films today the gore just isn't shocking enough to be disturbing or frightening. Some gore is really good - like in May where she cuts her eye out. But I still think most isn't really scary. Most of what we see today, anyway.
Nastybutlerbob
Also check out german video gore flicks like Schramm and NEKROmantic. NEKROmantik is a touching story about a simple highway cleanup man who regularly gives his wife dismembered body parts to pleasure herself with. But when he brings home a whole corpse to her she runs away with it and send our protagonist on a homicidal rampage. Always when looking for interesting gore material, dont look in the mainstream. Find the deepest darkest corner of the net, like AsylumofOblivion's page to find truly terrifying gore horror. Another good sup genre, not for everyone though, is GoreNography. Basically horror porn. Brutal and savage, but so disturbing is the fact that someone actually thought of these ideas and then found otherswilling to help film these dark ideas.
BackFire
Cannibal Holocaust definately is a very powerful and almost beautiful in the way it presents it's gore. It's a shame that it's so hard to find, unless you like using Ebay. I was lucky enough to get a bootleg copy from my cousin who used to be into all these types of films when he was younger.
Grindhouse Releasings should be releasing a super duper special edition of Cannibal Holocaust this year, but with the way they seem to do things, it could be much longer then originaly stated.
Nastybutlerbob, you should see the movies Irreversible and I Stand Alone, both those have great gore scenes, while they aren't really horror, they are both among the most disturbing films I have ever seen.
Nastybutlerbob
thanks for the tip....where can I find them? And one more time (not one last time) I will recommend August underground..on toetag pictures. Considered by most to be the first truly unwatchable film.
Dagons Blade
Yeah Cannibal Holocaust was one of the more memorable ones to be sure. Nastybutlerbob says it allwhen he says the forst time is the shocker and the secord and third viewings are where you can stomach it..
Another film to definitely turn your stomach is the Joe D'Amato classic Beyond The Darkness aka Buried Alive. The disemboweling scene, combined with the moistness of the organs, and the dull sound they made when thrown into the bucket gave me dry heaves for years to come. It was rumored that real corpses were used, but never proven, but you'd be hard to tell the difference...
h0ck3yh0rr0r

i never got to see the ending of Cannibal Holocaust. i barely even saw the good parts

BackFire
Irreversible is a new film, and is available at BestBuy, or many online retailers...I stand alone, is a bit more difficult to find, but I got mine at www.dvdplanet.com.
Keep in mind that neither of these are horror films, and hte gore scenes are very numerous or exagerated, they are very real and very very disturbing. Irreversible contains what I consider to be the most amazing rape scene in any movie, period.
Dagons Blade
Don't worry-after you see this film, you'll be familiar with parts of the body you never even knew you had.....
Michael Myers 1
Sweet site BF its cheap
Lord Soth
While gore is prominent in horror movies, it is not what makes a horror movie a horror movie. The point of horror is to instill fear. And sometimes gore can do that.
samhain
So it's a case of 'If the shoe fits'.
Lord Soth
That would be the case, yeah
HockeyFace
To Hockeyhorror and his statement about gore being funny-
I now believe that the saying "two great minds think alike" is absolutely true.
Agent_Diva
Gore is one of the things that "Makes or Breaks" a horror film.
Some horror films are notorious for there disturbing images and classy use of gore, but some films over do it, and the gore becomes more and more fake.
However, some films have very little, or no gore and are out standing films.
I.E - THE RING...(that would be the japanese original)
Dario Argento
Great! I have been looking for I Stand Alone. Thanks!
Irreversible is one of my favorite films. The rape scene is one of the most disturbing scenes I have seen.
BackFire
Yes, there is another disturbing scene in I Stand Alone as well. I think you'll like it.
amlap
i have been looking for a good disturbing flict for a while now. i have yet to see a movie that i couldnt stomache. so if any of you could, list some more of these picks...
papabeard
Gore is an offshoot of the horror genre, which discredits, serious and credible pyschological horror, . Gore films are dimwitted, unimaginative and usually end up being funny rather than scary.
Striel
The more gore there is, the less creepy the movie is. Not in all cases, but some. Exceptions: Hellraiser... what else...?
Striel
It seems like Gore in realistic movies tends to make it more disturbing. Does that make sense?
DeNiro
ok gore was meant to be overdone in a few movies like the Evil Dead series and also Canabli Holacaust and Hellraiser one. but Gore is just a classic part of slasher films not really horror that much i think.. Like Friday the 13th movies gore henc slasher movie. so i dont really put gore in the same catagory as horror. i like in TCm when they barely had gore and let ur imagination do the work. House of a thousand corpses was also very gory but really not scary at all but i dont catagorize that as horror either that is what i call a messed up movie
eggmayo
I just think that the entire point to horror films is to 'horrify' you.
Gore is horrific, so it works.
Striel
It doesn't work when it looks too over the top.
Cinemaddiction
Well, there is flat out "campy" gore, like Dead Alive which is always mentioned.
I think Re-Animator sets a good precident for the amount of gore that should be in a horror movie to keep it somewhat credible.
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