HEART OF DARKNESS

WARNING! I am pointing to something graphically violent below!! Watch enough to get the idea. I did not watch the entire thing myself.

http://www.revver.com/video/718011/frontiers-horror-movie-trailer/

This is entertainment nowadays.

We are in trouble.

I am not some prude or wilting lilly, and I do NOT like hand-wringing over violence in movies and video games. I play first person shooters, and hack and slash type RPG's, and have even played a couple of incarnations of Grand Theft Auto.

I admit I am not a horror film fan, particularly the slasher type films, but I do watch some. I tend to like werewolf/vampire stuff, or maybe one of the not horrible Alien films, but I am not one who refuses to watch them.

I don't like the idea of censorship or lecturing adults on what they should or not watch. To each his own.

However, there are friggin' limits...

First, this is not a horror film, not even of the slasher type.

Its a torture film. TORTURE. A psychotically sadistic snuff film in every sense of the term "snuff" but the actual death of someone. There is not terror in it, but mind crushing cruelty and soul deadening brutality.

Yes, yes, I've only seen the trailer, but I've seen similar. Rob Zombie's House of a 1,000 Corpses was the same thing. And damn, if this is only what is in the trailor.

There was no horror in that film. I never felt terrified or scared, like one would think a horror film is supposed to make one feel.

I felt disgusted and psychically damaged by it. Literally.

All the film was, was 90 minutes of de-humanizing, bestial savagery displayed in graphic form.

Again, I am NOT a overly sensitive type. I love action films, and fight films, and war films and I have played more than my share of violent video games.

However, like with many things, context plays a big role.

In the games I have played, you are fighting against opponents, AI or human, who are trying to kill you. Whether its a war game, or a fantasy role playing game, the idea is that the violence means something, there is a reason for it. You are in fighting a war, as cruel and brutal as that can be, or you a fighting a supernatural threat, or whatever.

And again, there is fighting. NOT repeated torture for torture and violence and sheer suffering's sake.

This is Evil.

If you believe any war or fighting is Evil, then let's at least categorize one as necessary evil and wanton Evil.

I do not buy the normal "violence in the media" causes real world violence meme. Or at least I did not before. Maybe I still don't.

BUT, anyone who can sit through something like this, repeatedly, and finds that they enjoy it, HAS to be disturbed in one way or the other.

I find this kind of thing particularly disturbing because there are people around the world being subjected to just this kind of treatment every minute (and NO, its not at Guantanamo), and while some many reject the violence of war which might prevent some of it, they are okaying with watching the cinematic equivalent and calling it entertainment.

I just feel that there is a terrible price to pay for all this, including Karmic.

WG