A Horrible Way To Die: Reality Vs Fantasy

[Sam@Cult Labs]

A Horrible Way To Die has elements of the extreme horror but it also plays like a much more thoughtful 'art film'. It's still a brutal example of realistic horror, there's no impressionistic camera work or fantastical elements, just the reality of murder and death.

What do you think?

I personally like a wide range of horror titles and enjoy the dumb shlock as much as the 'thinking' movies, but do you watch horror purely for escapism or do you like being confronted with the ugly truth now and then?

[thelostclassics]

I personally tend to gravitate towards horror films for the escapism. It's like what John Carpenter said, the everyone is sitting around the campfire and there's really only two stories to tell:
1. The evil is out there, past the trees, in the woods, in the world, there is an evil person. 2. The evil is in all of us, in fact it could be in the person next to you right now.

I love films that focus on the supernatural, similarly I enjoy horror films where evil is represented in a character - a boogeyman - you get an adrenaline rush from the scares but sometimes it can be fun. Also, terror happens as a consequence more often than not. For instance, would Jason bother you if you didn't go near Crystal Lake?

Real life is a different matter. Characters are like the main pro/antagonist of A Horrible way to die or Henry: the portrait of a serial killer. I guess it has to do with my work, I work with kids who get into trouble with the law and I work with their families too. Some of the things I see there scare the hell out of me or make me feel very uneasy, even after seven years of it. That's why I'll get home some days and put on Suspiria or a Fulci or Carpenter movie and ease back.
I guess that's why I'm not fond of films like Martyrs or I spit on your grave. There's a grittiness and realism to those films. Real violence played out by all-too-real people.

[Daemonia]

Originally Posted by Sam@Cult Labs

do you watch horror purely for escapism or do you like being confronted with the ugly truth now and then?

An interesting question. I'd argue that everything that's not real and put on screen is escapism. I think most of us already know the ugly truth about real-life violence. And, upon reflection, I'd say that almost every horror nut I've ever met has been pacifistic by nature, so it's not like we're an angry, violent mob that likes horror movies. In other words, strange to say, but horror fans seem by and large to be well balanced and with a proper sense that violence is abhorrent, but also understand that film is fictional.

But yes, for me, ALL fictional movies are escapism to some degree. Even a film like I Spit On Your Grave, because I'm never going to be raped and I will never commit that act myself - so it's a purely fictional scenario to me (in the context of it being a film, not that it doesn't happen). That might not be the case for victims of rape or people with rape fantasies, but for most people it's a situation they'll never encounter. It's something that happens 'out there', beyond our own sphere of experience.