Spring Break Draws to a Close

Goodness gracious I need a haircut. It’s disgusting, people. The only way I’ve been able to keep it under control is by adoptiong much more rigorous standards of washing and conditioning than I normally have to, but even that is not going to hold out forever.

Anyway, on to other things. I want to have an interesting discussion with you, dear reader, about violence in entertainment. How does it affect us? Some studies I’ve read suggest that young children are highly influenced by things they see on a TV screen, and will emulate them very precisely, and although I doubt that adults have this same problem, in what way does this tendency survive into a grown person?

I ask because I am puzzled by my own nature. It occurs to me recently how bizarre my rules of discomfort are. For example: I have absolutely no stomach for torture scenes of any kind, and most of the time they are in a movie they severely diminish my enjoyment of what I’m watching. On the other hand, if a movie depicts combat between two opponents, I can watch almost anything (although my limits have been discovered even in this regard) without minding. Now is this a ludicrous, contradictory position to have? I can’t ever figure it out.

Tone also plays a large role in things. Many horror movies, for example, are intended to have a strong leaning of dark comedy which off-sets the grotesqueness of what happens in them, but only rarely does this actually work on me. I watch people sit through slasher films and laugh their heads off, unable to disconnect from what’s happening and “enjoy” it. And then even if I can sit back and giggle, I’m not sure why.

For instance, I find Sam Raimi’s “Evil Dead” to be a hilariously good time. I found Jamie Gunn’s recent “Slither” incredibly disturbing. Now these are both gross-out horror films which set a tone more like Looney Tunes than reality, they are both intensely comedic, and they’re both very well made, so why does one work and the other doesn’t? Why does one feel more like Wile E Coyote sticking dynamite in his mouth than the other? I have a few theories on things that instantly turn me off the “whee!” bandwagon:

1. Begging for Life. I think this is a major one for me, I cannot possibly “have fun” while someone realistically pleads for mercy and then does not receive it. This bothers me more than all the gore in the world, I just can’t stand it, because it makes me feel pity, then anguish, then remorse, none of which are a “good time.” If two people are hacking each other up, that’s gross, but at least they’re highly-motivated combatants who are fighting for something. That I don’t mind. Human beings stripped of agency and humiliated does.

2. Realistic Gore. I feel like the problem with these “it’s just for fun!” horror movies is they do too good a job with the corn syrup. I mean let’s be honest, Bugs Bunny has technically committed some serious atrocities on hapless victims, but they never feel that way, do they? The reason is that the consequences are always unrealistic. The problem with comedic horror is too often it wants to have its cake and eat it, too: playing incredibly realistic butcherings for “laughs.” Some live-action movies have achieved this: Quentin Tarantino’s “Kill Bill” has a few death scenes where blood behaves in a way so utterly ridiculous that it actually is funny instead of being gross. If you want me “laughing,” then don’t make this crap look real!

I think sometimes this is just an honest mistake. When you’re making a movie, splattering fake blood everywhere, you’re constantly more aware that this is all just pretend, and in your eyes it is funny, because there is just no way you’re mistaking this for reality. But if you’ve done a good job, the audience doesn’t benefit from that detachment. Yes, we could detach ourselves forcibly, we could do that with “Schindler’s List” if we wanted to, but it should be your job to help us do that if comedy is what you want.

3. Only Killing Women and Black People. Red flag, guys. No good. It’s not that women or African-Americans can’t be killed in a horror movie, far from it, but when they’re the only ones biting the dust, it leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Yuck.

4. Overly Realistic Emotion. If you want to make a comedy-horror flick, the emotional range of your characters needs to be completely committed to this. Your characters can be “scared,” absolutely, but as we discussed above, if that crosses a line into anguish, it’s going to pull me out. The quintessential master of this is Bruce Campbell’s Ash from the “Evil Dead” series. Here is a guy who saws his own hand off with a chainsaw and makes it funny. It’s all in the acting, in the tone set by the director. Again, allow me to reference Looney Tunes, where there were amputations of almost any body part, and often horrified reactions to boot, but if you play it correctly, we know what you’re getting at.

5. Lack of Scares. Honestly, this is a big problem I had with “Slither,” and one of the reasons it didn’t feel fun to me: it just wasn’t scary at all, which left me to concentrate on how gross it was. Keeping some fear in the mix is necessary: it heightens the adrenaline level, which makes the audience a ticking time bomb of either screams or uproarious laughter. When you pay off a “joke” in a comedy-horror flick, our laugh should be a mix of “that’s funny” and “oh thank God because I was terrified.” If we have too much time to really look at what’s happening, I think it’s going to stop being funny.

Anyway, those are a few thoughts. I know these may not hold true for everyone, because tolerances are different, but for me, these are the essential steps. Movies like “Evil Dead” and “Shaun of the Dead” really nail this experience for me, they keep me laughing and gripping my seat at the same time. Honestly, comedy-horror might be one of the hardest genres to perfect, since it combines two of the most unforgiving realms of storytelling.

I don’t even know how I got started on that.