(no subject)

[chelseagirl]

Hope everyone had a great Halloween. We decided to go the scary movie route, but I'll have to say, Hellraiser? This movie I've imagined as unspeakably terrifying since the days of really large shoulderpads and hair mousse? (Both of which were featured prominently in the wardrobes of the Main Girl and the Resident Lady Macbeth.) Not so scary.

I think the problem is that my imagination had made it much scarier than it actually was. We saw so little of this realm of ultimate pleasure and pain, and it seemed to be made up of . . . would I actually be spoiling anybody? Just in case, a guy getting torn apart on meathooks which, okay, not pretty, and lots of bloody meat gobbets on the floor afterwards (in hindsight, not the best night to have cooked a steak, but oh well), but then until the blood brings him back into our world, not much seems to really happen. There's more disturbing visual imagery in Sandman and the torments seem a lot worse in Dante, if only because it's made clear that people heal up so that the torments are inflicted over and over again, which might have happened here, but what can really happen to gobbets of bloody meat that hasn't happened already anyway? Plus, not really getting the pleasure aspects. I get that Frank was into sexual experimentation, but it was depicted in a pretty vanilla way.

Also, not so terrifying because, except for Our Heroine (who I tried but failed to like), everyone who goes there *wanted* to go there.

On the plus side, the Cenobites hold up visually, and the scene with the arched corridor growing out of her hospital room was intriguing. I'd bet, however, that the book would take me to all those places the movie failed to, and so I shall not read it, so it can replace the film in my imagination as Too Unspeakably Disturbing.

*sigh* What's next? I suppose I should watch the Night of the Living Dead movies, at least one of which my husband actually owns. (It was given him as a gift.) I was traumatized as a child by seeing a preview for the original at a theater that was showing Black Beauty -- that sort of thing would *never* happen now! Plus, you know, I made it through 28 Days Later and now Shaun of the Dead has probably immunized me to being creeped out by zombie movies. I'm still in avoidance mode for Texas Chainsaw Massacre and its progeny, however.

Comments

[nycdeb.livejournal.com]

what can really happen to gobbets of bloody meat that hasn't happened already anyway?

stir-fry?

Oh my! Did I say that?

[chelseagirl.livejournal.com]

Yes, you did. :-)

Actually when I saw you'd commented I was certain it was going to be about the shoulder pads!

[mortalwombat731.livejournal.com]

I'm a big fan of the Hellraiser movies, or at least I was many years ago. I recently decided to see I-III again to see if they still squick me while making some point. I think the visuals were the part I liked best, and I also seem to recall that the pleasure in pain thing is much stronger in II and III. Is there something in that everyone who goes there wants to because they *think* they know what they're in for but have no idea what real pain is?

Zombie movies just don't scare me. They make me happy, especially NLD. Shaun of the Dead did the same, but in a unique and interesting way. Of course, the fact that I am fond of campy horror could have a lot to do with our varying perspectives and exposure. I have, however, avoided TCM, and will continue to do so, and I also don't do any of the blood and guts for blood and guts' sake genre. And Saw and Hostel (and anything I decide is of their ilk) are completely out, as clips on a Bravo show almost made me cry.

I have very specific preferences for my horror.

[mortalwombat731.livejournal.com]

(Oh yes, I hope to see The Prestige before book group. However, I guess finishing the book is my top priority...)

[chelseagirl.livejournal.com]

See the movie and you can talk about it with linaerys and me!

[chelseagirl.livejournal.com]

Maybe we should rent II or III. I just didn't think they did more than skim the surface of that.

I can't imagine anyone would go in there really knowing what they were getting into, but at the same time, I didn't think the pleasure aspect got played up at all. And when Pinhead said we're devils to some but angels to others, I'm trying to figure out who on *earth* those others would be. The Marquis de Sade?

[tv-elf.livejournal.com]

Have you tried Saw or Saw II?

[chelseagirl.livejournal.com]

No thank you. Maybe in about 20 years I'll rent one of them (or whatever the technology will be by then) and it will seem relatively tame, but right now, I'll skip it if it's all the same.

[nutmeg3.livejournal.com]

I remember the look of the Cenobites being the creepiest thing about Hellraiser, but I only ever saw the first one, so maybe they got creepier later. And I'm totally with you on avoiding the movies whose sole focus seems to be documenting new and horrible ways to demolish the human body. There's no challenge in simply grossing people out (my feelings about bathroom humor - the Police Academy movies, for instance - are exactly the same). And the dark at the top of the stairs is scarier than pretty much any movie monster. I always want to see the monster, and then I'm pretty much always disappointed when I do. One monster I do find creepy, I think as much for the way it moves as anything else (it kind of boils along somehow) is the one in Deep Rising, one of my guilty pleasures.