Horror & the 15 certificate

[Daemonia]

Oh, I'm not averse to gore in horror movies, far from it - and I'm not even complaining really about the gore in modern horror films. It's just the fact that they seem to offer little else. The 80's wave of splatter movies at least had an uncurrent of sleaziness and depravation that made them unsettling and were, to some degree, fairly believable. But the Saw films...well...we're expected to believe, in the later sequels, that a corrupt cop has the time to front as a bona fide policeman whilst at the same time able to secretly acquire huge derelict buildings, build complex, elaborate traps, and never seems to ever sleep. His technical wizardry must know no bounds! Come on, it's really stretching credibility now. The first couple were good, solid psychological-horror films though.

Hostel I absolutely hated. It's the same old American thing of treating foreign countries as dangerous places to be. Why couldn't it happen in the USA? Why does it have to be some suspicious Eastern European country? And Roth is so fixated on filming 'babes' for the first hour he practically forgets he's supposed to be making a horror film. Hostel 2 was more of the same. And in interviews at the time, Roth seemed more excited that he'd got laid as a result of being successful than he was at having made a film. Shows where his heart is, I suppose.

Of course there are some great films out there and I've enjoyed the new wave of French horror immensely. But overall, it's been a looooong time since a film has truly unnerved me or unsettled me. So please don't think I'm against all modern horror, I'm not. But the likes of Hostel, the later Saw entries and Captivity just tend to bore me rather than thrill me. They just pile on the gore in the absence of coherent and intelligent storytelling.

[nekromantik]

Originally Posted by Peter Neal

For one reason or another I can't see myself getting tired of the more recent "gore focussed" brand of horror and I would strongly suggest that the modern likes of "Wolf Creek", the first "Saw" (which actually DOES feature characters the audience could care about), the first "Hostel" (to some fair degree), "The Collector", most of the French "gore epics", "The Descent", "Eden Lake" etc DO have their fair share of spooky, scary, unsettling scenes..
I respect your view, deamonia, but your verdict on modern horror movies focussing too much on the gore instead of the scares reminds me of tons of reviews I read about the 70's/80's wave of "splatter movies", which we consider to be classics these days....

While I also like gore movies, I do think the new trend is to focus on it alot and forget about story. Thats why movies like LTROI are such a refreshing change. Collector was good but was not that gory I dont think. Hostel 1 was pretty bad. The 2001 maniacs remake was pretty good I thought as it mixed gore and comedy.

[Daemonia]

Originally Posted by nekromantik

The 2001 maniacs remake was pretty good I thought as it mixed gore and comedy.

I thoroughly enjoyed it too. The gore was very slapstick and the whole film had a sense of fun about it, which I liked. I thought director Tim Sullivan(?) did a fine job with it and I had a great time.

[RoXX0rz]

I haven't read all the posts in this thread so, I apologise in advance if something I say is just a repeat of another member's opinion. This reply is solely related to VIPCO's question and my opinions on it.

There's no doubt over the past few years since 2005 (and before) the BBFC's '15' certificate has become more liberal, and more and more stuff that was passed '18' in the 90's is now being passed at '15'. "The Shining" being one example, and another being "People Under the Stairs" which was rated '18' but now is downgraded to '15'. Do I think that their judgements are always right when it comes to giving a movie a '15' rating? Not always. I think sometimes it's too high and sometimes it's too low. I guess it's pretty hard for them to please everyone though, but on the whole I agree with most of the decisions. Don't get me wrong, I don't support censorship at the '18' category but I do believe younger kids shouldn't be watching extremely gory or violent films. For adults it's upto them.

I'll take "The Strangers" (I actually like this movie! It was good) for one example where my opinions differed from the BBFC. I know most people will disagree with me here, but it's what I think anyway. In Ireland this was passed at '18', but in the UK it was given a '15' certificate. In my opinion, this time around the Irish film censors was correct. I believe "The Strangers" should have been given an '18' instead of a '15'. I think in the 90's the BBFC would have given this movie an '18'. Why? The movie doesn't contain graphic violence and that's obvious. Infact, the violence shown is relatively mild and very little is shown onscreen, more is implied than shown. The language in it is fitting in the '15' category perfectly. It's more the fact that it's the whole tone of the film and showing a mid-teen audience a young couple being terrorised for what apparently is just for fun, and there is no real bad outcome for the bad guys in it. It is even said at the end of the film, they will do this act again. So basically, although the violence in this film was mild, the whole psychological tone was about terrorising a couple for no apparent reason at all, other than just for fun and then killing them. It's just my opnion but I think it would have been at the lower end of '18' rather than high end '15'. So my overall opinion on the BBFC's liberal '15' is split, sometimes I'll agree with a movie's rating at '1'5 and other times I think it's too low or too high, with most of the time when I disagree with it because it is too low.

When I buy a DVD the ratings on them don't affect my judgement on buying them, unless something has been cut or removed from the film then I won't bother with it, unless it's very minor, like say under 5 seconds of cuts or so. I guess if a person's judging the movie by its rating, they're seeking out the most goriest & violent films they can find so they'd skip the 15 and go for something rated 18. With me, aslong as the movie's uncut and untampered, the rating doesn't bother me because it's the movie I've been after all along.

Anyway, my rant is over!

[nmsis1985]

I think that the majority of films that I have seen within the horror genre that have the '15' certificate have been generally supernatural / ghost stories. Some of them were pretty effective and didn't really touch on gore. Generally I go for the content of a film rather than look at the certificate.

[McCrutchy]

I think the '15' certificate is simply becoming a bit too broad. Mostly because you still have PG-13 films like True Grit (2010), Date Night and Dinner For Schmucks deemed to risque for 12 certificates. I mean, are those two comedies really as bad as The Strangers or The Shining?

[Hawkmonger]

Thread necromancy to the extreme!!!
But anyhow I just wanted to say, why is Dawn of the Dead (original) still an 18? I saw worse levels of gore in Terminator Salvation. /:|

[Vampix]

I remember being quite surprised by the BBFC's decision to pass the formerly banned video nasty Contamination completely uncut with a 15 rating.It's not that I disagree with the 15 rating I was just surprised by it, it being on the dreaded list and all.