Films you generally avoid...

[Itisnotlogical]

The horror genre is pretty much the only one I abstain from altogether. I see no entertainment value in the graphic, systematic murder of the main cast...and frankly I think there must be something wrong with people that do.

That's a very, very broad generalization of the horror genre. Your description of horror mostly applies to the "LOLOLOL THE PEOPLE DIED ITS SO SCARY U GUIZ!!!" type of horror that's become popular because of the SAW series. A good horror story creeps you out by building up suspense and dread by giving you just enough of what's going on to frighten you, without really letting you see the full picture until the end. Compare Bram Stoker's Dracula. Few of the main cast members die, yet it's considered one of the best horror classics of history.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

...and we might want to bring this back to genres of film rather than endless kvetching about a reviewer...

Amen!

I gotta admit: I avoid sad animal movies, too. I can't even watch those heart-breaking anti-animal cruelty ads . . . .

I can watch people getting eviscerated and sleep like a baby. But don't hurt the puppy!

I don't like sad animal movies or movies that feature cruelty or harm to children. There are exceptions, if the intent of the film is serious, but I don't find stuff like that entertaining and if it's used to shock or gin up audience anxiety over "the stakes" I don't go for it.

 

[Kirkman1987]

I love horror movies but mostly pre-90's stuff. The most recent horror movie that I remember really enjoying was The Mist.

 

[Klaus]

I can't even watch those heart-breaking anti-animal cruelty ads . . . .

I'm not a violent person, but those make me want to get a battleaxe and start dicing. I switch them in a mad leap for the remote.

 

[Greg Cox]

The horror genre is pretty much the only one I abstain from altogether. I see no entertainment value in the graphic, systematic murder of the main cast...and frankly I think there must be something wrong with people that do.

That's overly harsh . . . and borderline insulting. I know lots of horror fans, writers, artists, and editors, and most of us are perfectly pleasant people who would never dream of bathing in human blood in real life. But that's doesn't mean our fiction can't go over to the dark side sometimes.

I admit I've never seen any of the SAW movies. I generally prefer my horror and monster movies to be more fantastic or supernatural. But I love old Vincent Price movies like DR. PHIBES or THEATER OF BLOOD in which people are often killed in ingeniously creative ways . . . .

It's like that great line at the beginning of every episode of Castle: "There are two kinds of people in the world who spend all their time thinking about how to kill people: psychopaths and mystery writers."

Same for horror fans, I imagine.

 

[Klaus]

Stephen King:

I think that we’re all mentally ill; those of us outside the asylums only hide it a
little better – and maybe not all that much better, after all. We’ve all known people who
talk to themselves, people who sometimes squinch their faces into horrible grimaces
when they believe no one is watching, people who have some hysterical fear – of snakes,
the dark, the tight place, the long drop . . . and, of course, those final worms and grubs
that are waiting so patiently underground.
When we pay our four or five bucks and seat ourselves at tenth-row center in a
theater showing a horror movie, we are daring the nightmare.

 

[Broccoli]

^ Four or five bucks for a movie? Wow, he really does write science fiction!

 

[barnaclelapse]

I actually wrote something in my Word Press blog (cheap plug!) about trying to get rid of weird prejudices about certain types of movies when I wrote a review for my favorite musical, "Dancer in the Dark."

 

[Neroon]

ETA: After discussing it with the author, this thread is being moved to the TVM forum

 

[Greg Cox]

^ Four or five bucks for a movie? Wow, he really does write science fiction!

I believe that's from Danse Macabre, which was written many decades ago . . . .

 

[pimp]

Anything to do with Harry Potter and Twilight rubbish I stay far away from

 

[Kemaiku]

I got into horror films 7 years ago, literally, and have quickly gotten to love the genre, the cookey, dated, red jam stuff and all. Its ridiculous scary fun and I'm still squeamish, yes I can watch more of it, but blood and death are still the scary 'do not want' things they always were.

 

[Greg Cox]

And, of course, there's blood and there's "blood." That garishly red, Technicolor stuff they used in the old Hammer movies is part of their charm.

 

[ITL]

And, of course, there's blood and there's "blood." That garishly red, Technicolor stuff they used in the old Hammer movies is part of their charm.

Good old Kensington Gore.

 

[Warped9]

Count me in as someone who has never stomached gratuitous gore and violence. Something like we see at the beginning of Saving Private Ryan is fine because it represents reality and serves to establish the setting. But slasher flicks and torture porn and the like are out for me.

 

[LitmusDragon]

Any Uwe Boll film
Movies with stupid titles (2 Fast 2 Furious, Dude Wheres my Car, etc)
Movies that seem overly salacious in a particular way (like the Saw movies, or Human Centipede)

 

[Broccoli]

^ Four or five bucks for a movie? Wow, he really does write science fiction!

I believe that's from Danse Macabre, which was written many decades ago . . . .

Yes, I realize that it was a dated quote. I was making a joke. But, then, if you have to explain it, it no longer becomes a joke. It's just a sentence.

 

[Greg Cox]

And, of course, there's blood and there's "blood." That garishly red, Technicolor stuff they used in the old Hammer movies is part of their charm.

Good old Kensington Gore.

Hah! I never knew there was a name for it!

I'll have to remember that . . . .

 

[Kemaiku]

And, of course, there's blood and there's "blood." That garishly red, Technicolor stuff they used in the old Hammer movies is part of their charm.

Good old Kensington Gore.

Hah! I never knew there was a name for it!

I'll have to remember that . . . .

Indeed. I love the campy-ness of the Hammer series, I mean they even deliberately use the un-hydrated powder in some of the films as "dried blood" that 'magically' reconstitutes during scenes (ie someone dribbles water into it).