Do horror movies kill people?

[Brian Christgau]

My $00.02 on the French "Scream"-inspired murders:
To paraphrase Stephen King, if these kids' crimes really were
inspired by a horror film, the first thing that should be done with them is
that they should spend the rest of their lives in prison. Then they should
be sued for plagiarism.
Yes, once again, we take a journey into the absurd territory of "I'm
okay, everybody else is a ticking time-bomb waiting to go off." If it's not
Heavy Metal music, it's Rap music. If it's not video games, it's horror
movies. I'm loathe to invoke the NRA's specious mantra, but movies, music,
books and video games don't kill people. People kill people. And works of
art don't accidentally discharge and blow your big toe off.
The one up-side of this story is that, at the very least, it shows us
that this preposterous theory that violent art causes violence is hardly
unique to America. During the 80's, a serial killer in Japan turned out to
be a big fan of horror to pictures. So what did they do? They banned
explicitly violent horror films for a while, which meant that fewer
explicitly violent horror films were made. And yet, to this day, the 2nd
highest grossing film in Japanese history is "Cannibal Holocaust" (#1 is
"E.T."). The film failed to inspire an epidemic of anthropophagia, though it
*did* inspire a few rip-offs ("The Blair Witch Project" chief among them).
And then there was the whole "video nasty" affair in England, where
police were raiding video stores and yanking copies of horror films off the
shelves. Chief among these offending tapes was "The Living Dead in the
Manchester Morgue", a film that (by sheer coincidence, I'm sure) just
happened to be highly subversive and extremely critical of the police. Funny
how that happens. This was the same country where a film about witch-hunter
Mathew Hopkins, "Witchfinder General", caused a bit of a witch-hunt itself.
One thing that always rankles me when this issue comes up is that no
one, EVER, mentions "The Sorrows of Young Werther". For those of you who
aren't familiar with it, "Werther" is a novel by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
whose basic plot goes like this: Boy meets girl, boy falls in love with
girl, girl doesn't fall in love with boy, boy shoots himself in the temple,
his head swells to the size of a basketball, and he dies days later. This
novel from the "Sentimentalist" school about the quintessential "Man of
Feeling" was so outrageously popular that before long young men all through
Europe were dressing like Werther. And before long they shooting themselves
in the temple, like Werther.
Today, lawyers would argue that the novel had subliminal messages that
made those mixed up kids commit suicide. Personally, I think these were sad,
probably mentally ill, certainly mixed up lads who were on their way to an
early grave. "Werther" simply inspired them in the *method* of their
self-destruction. I don't think this recent case of the "Scream" murders is
any different. As a character in that very film says: "Movies don't make
psychos, they just make psychos more creative."
There are always going to be some people who are just plain fucked up.
To blame music, movies, video games or role playing games for their
destructive or self-destructive behavior is like focusing on the symptom
instead of the disease.
Whenever this violent art = violent acts nonsense comes up, why is it
the same people who advocate the censoring of Marilyn Manson don't advocate
a ban on Richard Wagner and the Beatles' White Album? After all, Hitler
loved Wagner and Charles Manson was inspired by the White Album.
Why don't they want to ban them? Because they are certified classics and
they know that any suggestion that they're responsible for the slaughter of
human beings will be perceived as ridiculous. It's much easier to pick on
something like horror movies, video games or Heavy Metal music because
there's something mysterious (and therefore sinister) about them to parents.
(I also find it interesting that these same folks don't have a problem with
REAL violence on TV.)
What goes on in the mind of a lunatic? I don't know. But I know that we
can't live in fear of what a few messed up people *might* do to the point
where we censor our art, our music, our very thoughts. I don't think Skip is
advocating censorship (correct me if I'm wrong on this) but
*self-censorship* by artists and by the film industry. And I think that
would be a terrible mistake.
If nothing else, "Scream" showed Hollywood that there is a HUGE audience
for horror films and that there is a tremendous appetite out there for them.
And yet, the suits still don't trust the genre, which is why when they *do*
make a horror film they suck the horror element out of it and turn it into
an action-adventure movie. I mean, Universal hires Rob Zombie to make a
horror movie and then they won't release it because it's "too scary"!? What
does that tell you?
Horror is, by it's very nature, subversive. It makes people feel
uncomfortable. At the same time, there's something cathartic, nay, even
therapeutic about it. I don't think horror films are any more harmful than
Grimm's Fairy Tales, which they are the direct descendant of. If I had kids,
would I let them watch "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre"? Probably not if they
were *really* little. Of course, I also wouldn't read them "Cinderella" or
"The Juniper Tree" as a bedtime story, either.
Some of the greatest, most ground-breaking films ever made are horror
films. We can't underestimate the cultural significance of films like
"Nosferatu", "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari", "Bride of Frankenstein" and
"Night of the Living Dead". The horror film is like the indestructible
monsters it often depicts; just when you think it's dead, it comes back
stronger than before. Like the Western, it may come in and out of fashion,
but it will never be totally gone.

Cheers,

B

--
"In politics, what begins in fear usually ends in folly."

- Samuel Taylor Coleridge

[LODGESTE]

>Like the Western, it may come in and out of fashion,
>but it will never be totally gone.

Now, that's the best thing you said.
- Steve

[Skip Press]

In article <ae91km$sum$1...@slb1.atl.mindspring.net>,
"Brian Christgau" <ra...@NOFRIGINSPAMpipeline.com> wrote:

OK, you've convinced me, I'm going to write a movie and/or book where
young impressionable all-black wearing Hillary Clinton workers off
themselves by diving into Washington DC sewer vents. Then if they
actually start doing it and one takes Hillary with him/her/it, all the
better.

BTW, using words like anthropophagia on this newsgroup is a serious leap
of faith regarding educational level of m.w.s.

--

It is important also to consider, that the surest means of avoiding war is to be prepared for it in peace.

-- Justice Joseph Story

All the best,

Skip Press, the Duke of URL and
The Sum of All Hollywood Fears at
http://home.earthlink.net/~skippress/

[penny campey]

"Skip Press" <skip...@earthlink.net> wrote in message
news:skippress-316E3...@nnrp06.earthlink.net...

how insulting, I for one, knew it was the studyof pop music.

Ma Baker

[Skip Press]

In article <aea9as$3dn$1...@paris.btinternet.com>,
"penny campey" <p.ca...@btinternet.com> wrote:

Gee, I thought it was when a caveman pages you.

--

Writing is turning one's worst moments into money.

-- J. P. Donleavy

[Brian Christgau]

Skip Press <skip...@earthlink.net> wrote in message
news:skippress-316E3...@nnrp06.earthlink.net...

> OK, you've convinced me, I'm going to write a movie and/or book where
> young impressionable all-black wearing Hillary Clinton workers off
> themselves by diving into Washington DC sewer vents. Then if they
> actually start doing it and one takes Hillary with him/her/it, all the
> better.

If you have them dive into the sewers, get exposed to toxic waste and
turn into cannibal mutants, you might be able to sell it as "Chud III".

Cheers,

B