"In the "post-September 11" world, as we are prone to call it, horror films may have been muzzled for a time. [George] Romero, for instance, reports that he was in negotiations to begin a fourth chapter of the Living Dead Trilogy in the days immediately preceding the terrorist attacks in New York, D.C. and Pennsylvania but that in the aftermath of these events the negotiations we ended... The fears at large in the real world have been so magnified and intensified that for the time beign Americans prefer their projected fears to be more tame and predictable."
-Projected Fears, Kendall R. Phillips (published April 30, 2005)
Clip From Wolf Creek.
"There is a line and this movie crosses it. I don't know where the line is, but it's way north of Wolf Creek. There is a role for violence in film, but what the hell is the purpose of this sadistic celebration of pain and cruelty? The theaters are crowded right now with wonderful, thrilling, funny, warm-hearted, dramatic, artistic, inspiring, entertaining movies. If anyone you know says this is the one they want to see, my advice is: Don't know that person no more."
-Roger Ebert (December 23, 2005)
"Post-9/11, we’ve engaged in a national debate about the morality of torture, fueled by horrifying pictures of manifestly decent men and women (some of them, anyway) enacting brutal scenarios of domination at Abu Ghraib. And a large segment of the population evidently has no problem with this. Our righteousness is buoyed by propaganda like the TV series 24, which devoted an entire season to justifying torture in the name of an imminent threat: a nuclear missile en route to a major city. Who do you want defending America? Kiefer Sutherland or terrorist-employed civil-liberties lawyers?"
-David Edelstein's Torture Porn: The Sadistic Movie Trend (January 28th, 2006)
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Carol Clover's Men, Women and Chain Saws (1992) introduced the "final girl" archetype.
-Only person to survive carnage.
-Virginal
-Commonly had gender-neutral name.
-Typically destroys villain by means of some phallic weapon.
Movies that subvert "final girl" archetype:
-Wolf Creek
-The Descent
-Final Destination 3
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Villains from the 1980s:
Freddy Krueger (5 films between 1984 and 1989)
Pinhead
Leatherface (3 films between 1974 and 1990)
Jason Voorhees (8 films between 1980 and 1988)
Michael Myers ( 5 films between 1978 and 1989)
Villains from horror films 2004 through today:
John Kramer/Jigsaw says, "I'm sick of people who don't appreciate their blessings... "
The American Businessman
Dr. Zamora says, "What does a gringo do if he gets sick? Does he wait on a donnor list? Or does he come to a third world country like ours and buy organs from one of our children? I'm only balancing this out."
Gary from Captivity.
The controversial Captivity billboard.
"So just let me say that the ad campaign for "Captivity" is not only a literal sign of the collapse of humanity, it's an assault. I've watched plenty of horror - in fact I've made my share. But the advent of torture-porn and the total dehumanizing not just of women (though they always come first) but of all human beings has made horror a largely unpalatable genre."
-Joss Whedon in a letter to the MPAA.
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"The prevalence of the Slasher genre in the 80's is often seen as a reflection of the societal backlash from the sexually open hippy era to a point where sex was again something to be feared. The slasher, reinforcing these values was a creation of cold war paranoia. Freddy, Jason and Michael were just manifestations of the seemingly indestructible force of communism—a monolithic beast ready to destroy the All-American kids and take away the future of an entire generation. In the slasher films the enemy was clear and the motivation was simple because America knew "they" were the bad guys and we were the good guys...Today, we have been weaned on paranoia. Anyone could be a "sleeper-cell" hiding in our neighborhood. Anyone we pass on the street could be planning to make some homemade explosive and put it in his or her shoe."
-Matthew Moses, "The Evolution of Horror (1987-2007), from Drivl.com
From the Department of Homeland Security Website.
Patriot Act.
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Effective?
Saw made for 1.2 million dollars/grossed 102 million dollars worldwide
Saw II made for 4 million dollars/grossed 144 million dollars worldwide
Saw III made for 10 million dollars/grossed 165 million dollars worldwide
Hostel made for 4.5 million dollars/grossed 100 million dollars worldwide
"Despite the crude nature of previous incidences of torture, there is a strong evidence that sometimes torture is effective at eliciting information and it does save innocent lives. This is a point accepted by most critics. For example, Israeli authorities claim to have foiled ninety terrorist attacks by using coercive interrogation...
One of the people doing the torturing in the Algiers was General Paul Aussaresses [who claimed in his book] 'the best way to make a terrorist talk when he refused to say what he knew was torture.'"
-Mirko Bagaric and Julie Clarke, "Torture: When the Unthinkable Is Morally Permissible" (2007)
"We're talking about the most successful intelligence gained in the war on terror coming from these programs."
-Anonymous aide to President Bush, speaking to Newsweek in 2005
