Brutality!

The bloody pathetic of the modern horror movie…

Choosing a subject for a new movie text has never been easier. Flipping through by favourite British magazine “Empire”, issue 226 to me exact, I saw a schizophrenic freak, a nightmare that will haunt me for days to follow, after which I will be waking up with a feeling of relief once I realise that the “boogie man” from my dreams will not disembowel me after all. I will no longer keep you in suspense. It was that stupid doll from the movie “Saw”, which I will call, just as its creator did, “Jigsaw”.

That ridiculous “I think I’m very scary” Jigsaw is a symbol for a completely new approach to horror movies that could conquer the screens in the upcoming period.

What sets aside the “Werther of demonic face” as the leader of this completely new, unacceptably popular trend? It must be that irresistible, predictable evil smile? Or those original ‘red means evil’ eyes? The pale face and Victorian hairstyle? Perhaps it is that bow tie and that melancholic, brutal voice of his?

The “Saw” movies open with the following words, or something similar:

“Good morning, Sebastian, or is it? It’s up to you to decide. You have spent your entire life fixing mother boards, disregarding the lung anomalies of your female co-workers. Now, you have to devour five kilograms of silica before the clock strikes noon, that is, before the weight of the metal activates the security switch. How far are you ready to go to live to see the issuing of the new, one thousand gigabyte transportable disc, Sebastian?”

Sebastian never loved his life too much, so he ended the game squished by walls that were, coincidentally, equipped by very practical stakes. And the fun begins…

The poster for the DVD of the fourth sequel of “Saw” says: “Hello Friends. Wanna Play a Game?”

It is a very well known serial, so we are all very much aware of what these games really mean: a new set of rooms that hide various, always new and vicious deadly games for somewhat older children from broken marriages and destroyed life ideals. Barbed wires, syringes, poisons and metal shredders to the end! Slice, dice, burn, fry, saw, blow up… and that’s that. That’s all you get. There are no far-fetched situations as offered by good examples of horrors (The Shining?). There is no subtlety, no brain wracking, suspense, adrenalin… Nothing. After so many sequels of the “Saw”, “The Hostel”, “Chambre 666” and “Catacombs” you become one of those insensitive pigs such as our dear puppet “Jigsaw”, whose only purpose is to show us how people in moments of extreme danger can turn into cry-babies worthy of a gruesome execution… Of course, you “turning into a pig” in this case means indifference towards what’s going on on the screen, not in the physical world.

Did those producers not watch “House of Wax”? Do they not know that we already got satisfaction from Hilton’s imaginary disappearance from the face of the Earth, that is, from the covers of tabloids within two hours of the movie? Did that not satisfy all our morbid movie fantasies?

Should nameless characters with no sense of spouting sensible sentences be so viciously punished just because the only true star of the series is Mr. Jigsaw? Judging from the turnout of the audience, it seems that they should. It appears that such modern horror movies have become not only a substitute for previously popular remakes of Japanese horror movies (“Circle 1 and 2”,”Grudge 1 and 2”, and so on) and then the remakes of American classic horrors (Cage”, “Wicker Man”, Halloween”), but also for those almost forgotten tradition of our ancestors who enjoyed watching lions rip the flesh from slaves in arenas (I must admit, I watched “Quo Vadis”, being aware of the partial reality of the story).

Modern areas located in a small disc, that is, the warmth of your home? Fantasy come true! First of all you – censored – his eyes with a drill, then you take pliers to work on his – censored – and when you – censored – with a knife, you finish off – censored – with a hammer to the head. After the end of the show, you take out the disc and go back to your normal life, full of joyous social enrichment … yeah, right! I do not even want to get into those exaggerated theses about “teenagers possessed by the movie devil”, but it would be worth discussing young people who have become a stultified bunch of brain averages.

There is a kind of symbolism in my anger as I looked at the “evil” puppet “Jigsaw” on page 39 of the Empire. An hour later I read about how the filming of the 5^th sequel of “Saw” began whose premiere will be on October 14. The sixth sequel is also being planned. Looking back, we will notice two sequels of “Hostel”, several dozens of semi-products of equally questionable quality and, of course, independent production, the desperate Zombi remake of “Halloween” which sets apart only the backside of the charming Sheri Moon because of which I probably would have seen the movie in its entirety had I not come to the realisation that Sheri blows her head off in the middle of the film (and she danced so well with those boneheads!).

The poor George A. Romero is struggling (and somehow making it work) and he filmed a new sequel of the zombie movie series, “Diary of the Dead” that still keeps semi-decomposing corpses on the classic horror half-life that have a hard time resisting the current mass dominators of that genre. It seems that ghosts vanished along with “Ghost Busters”, vampires decided to sleep a few years and nobody has seen a werewolf since “Van Helsing”. New ideas are seldom good ideas, but I would not mind the old, already mentioned ones, if their movie production would entail some freshness, some unfamiliarity within the well-known value system... Something, perhaps not particularly original, but stimulates the adrenaline glands and is terribly contagious… Fear is one of man’s most basic, primal reactions to protect ourselves. What makes us move our brains in directions we did not even know existed, that darkness that creates the greatest and most terrifying monsters… That simulated darkness, that often active feeling is what creates a good horror movie, the one that more heralds than demonstrates. You do not have to love this kind of movie, but if you watch at least one a season, do not allow yourself to waste precious time by watching movies such as the precious “Jigsaw”.

Saw is not a terrifying movie. Unfortunately, Saw was a success, a discovered attempt to churn out fear in a way McDonalds churns out food. After so much tasting, the taste becomes boring and predictable.

Choose wisely.