"Has Violence In Horror Films De-Sensitized You?"

Greetings Night Creatures 

I was recently asked a question: “Has violence in horror films de-sensitized you?” 

Short answer: NO. I don't believe violence in film has made me numb to real violence. 

Long answer:

I grew up in that splatter filled decade known as the 1980's. When gore films went MAINSTREAM. Every weekend there was new bloody horror film to see at my local drive-in or cinema. Although quaint now, the effects in Friday the 13th for example...(the throat slit, the axe in the face) where shocking and brutal and did HORRIFY! Oh, how the audience would scream!!! 

The 1980's pushed envelopes beyond all levels of good taste. We will NEVER again see a mainstream horror film that gleefully depicts the murder and mayhem in films like The Toolbox Murders, Madman, The Burning, or (Thank God) The Grim Reaper. 

These films were supply and demand. From its laughable beginnings (HG Lewis' Blood Feast) to the high tech decapitations seen in films of today (Sleepy Hollow) - on-screen violence can be mesmerizing (at least to me)

As a teen, I surrounded myself with it. I poured through the pages of magazines like Fangoria and Gorezone. I searched it out. Italian horrors on videotape and mainstream gore drenched splatter on the big screen. Gates of Hell, Zombie, Halloween II....

Oh, was it fun!

The drive-in screen flowed red, and the hardtops were filled with screams. My room was festooned with posters and images that could very well be called 'disturbing'. My parents reacted with the kind of concern that parents are supposed to, but inside they knew what a gentle soul I was and didn't 'ship me off for evaluation' (I thought it would be cool if they did though!) 

As time passed, I realized that the gore no longer held the same 'appeal' as it used to. In fact, it bored me. Not to say that it still wasn't 'fun' but I no longer reacted to it in the appropriate way. I started concentrating on the terror of a situation and not the bloody result. That became more disturbing to me.

Example: Recently I watched Stuart Gordon's DAGON. The skinning alive scene was near unwatchable for me. Not because of the special effects (which where great) but the situation and the lead-in. The old man praying as he watched the butchers approach and hold him. The slow and methodical way that skinning took place...and the sound...

It's the same way that a good graphic sex scene isn't about the actual penetration (at least not anymore) but about the lead-in and the situation/ seduction/ titillation. 

After I got married and had a baby boy, (He's one year old) I started noticing the differences in the way horror affected me more and more. As I saw my favorites again on tape, I paid special attention to the tone and mood of the film. Re-Animator, Evil Dead, Dawn of the Dead ,etc...Wild rides of over the top gore and situations that firmly place them and their ilk in the realm of fantasy and therefore diminishes the power to affect me.

But Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer disturbed me.  

Even The Burning has a scene that I watch with different eyes now. The scene (that I'm sure you all know) where the Cropsy maniac butchers a raft full of kids. 6 or 7 of them. Kids. At a summer camp. One after another. Brutal and sudden. 

My son, Edward will probably go to camp when he's old enough. 

Just dismissing the crazy improbable situation (and Rick Wakeman music) ...the idea of a hideously burned and scarred madman murdering my son with a pair of garden shears really pisses me off. And why? Because of a prank that went horribly wrong and disfigured him. These kids on the raft had nothing to do with that. They are innocent. That's where the 'reality' of a horror film has changed for me. When I watch scenes of murder, I now think...(in the context of the story) that's someone's baby boy...that's someone's little girl! 

Those of you who have children will understand...those that don't, well, just wait. 

It truly changed everything. I don't enjoy my splatter films any less however and I'm truly the same gorehound that I used to be. (I still dwell in the memories of the fun-scream filled gory days of the 1980s')  

But life is even more precious to me than ever before. I cherish my son and watched as he came into the world...covered in blood and screaming. Reality is beautiful. Fantasy is beautiful. But there is no way (at least in a sane mind) that the two could blur enough to make me immune to real horror. 

I once saw a pedestrian hit by a car. He flew in the air and looked for all the world like a badly made movie dummy. It was real, but it looked fake. When fantasy seems real it's artistry, when reality becomes fake and unimportant, that's where true horror lies.  

Rest in Peace

Prof. Griffin