WTF: Why Not Slaughter Kittens On Screen?

Posted by Kevin Carr (kevin@filmschoolrejects.com) on March 19, 2009

To quote a famous one-eyed sailor, “I am disgustipated.”

That’s not an easy feat, mind you. I can take a lot on the silver screen, but I have to say that when I saw last week’s new remake The Last House on the Left, I was pretty much disgustipated.

Then I started hearing feedback for my review, and it disgustipated me even more.

Here’s an excerpt from my review that ran on my web site 7mpictures.com and was linked to from RottenTomatoes.com:

The one thing that kept going through my mind as I watched “The Last House on the Left” was how unnecessary the film it.

Oh, the fans of the original and this new remake will most likely insult my intelligence by suggesting that I just didn’t get the movie. Don’t worry. I got the movie. And I still didn’t like it.

I know that the original has been held up as a “video nasty” horror classic because of the movie’s “It could happen” potential. And yes, I will concede that the reality of a band of raping, murdering psychopaths is far more likely than any scenario involving werewolves, vampires or zombies. But the bottom line is that I don’t enjoy watching innocent people get brutalized on screen. And call me crazy, but I really detest rape scenes in films.

Then I read some comments from RottenTomatoes.com readers like these:

He’s missing the point completely. He just didn’t expect to be horrified when he walked into a true horror flick and he’s lashing out at others who can handle it…. You’re supposed to be shaken, disgusted and sick to your stomach. That fact that this film evoked such raw emotions from you so effectively is to be applauded, not criticized for.
- Bloody Mathias

The movie did what it was supposed to do, Kevin. No way…a scary horror film that actually was horrific?
- Josh M.

What the fake rape?

There’s a lot of things in movies that people consider awful that I can stomach. Heck, I’ve seen all the SAW movies, and I actually liked the Hostel films. Yet filmgoers have been turning their nose up at most torture porn lately. But with $14 million at the box office last weekend, I suppose we’re okay with rape… just don’t torture anyone.

Now I know that FSR’s own Rob Hunter saw The Last House on the Left and liked it quite a bit. But I have to agree with FSR’s Robert Fure on his feedback to Hunter’s review in the comments section:

In 1972 this film was like nothing else that had really been done, so damn sure that’s shocking. But viewed today by a young generation of horror veterans, it is kind of laughable at parts.

Fure’s absolutely correct. Rape is nothing new on the American cinema screen. In fact, there was a string of movies in the mid-1990s – from crap like Showgirls to fine movies like Rob Roy – that featured pretty graphic depictions. So sitting here in 2009, these scenes are not really shocking any more like the original 1972 Last House on the Left. Rather, they’re just unnecessary.

The RT readers cited above suggest that I don’t get the movie because I don’t understand this was a way to horrify the audience. Let’s forget for a moment that I actually say in my review that I do get it; I just don’t like it. (That’ll show how often people just read the pull quotes and not the full review.) My question is whether full blown graphic rape scenes are really that necessary, even in a movie like this.

After all, the villains in The Last House on the Left already kidnap, beat-up and threaten the girls, eventually stabbing one to death in the stomach. Earlier in the movie, they kill two deputies, strangling one with a seat belt while showing him a picture of his children and telling him he’ll never see them again. Can you tell me that adding rape to their list of crimes makes them any less awful?

Oh sure, the rape seems to clinch the revenge plot of the parents, but isn’t it bad enough that they shoot their daughter and leave her for dead in a lake? But even beyond that, I ask why it’s necessary to show all of the crime on screen? Does it make the act any less awful? Is it really necessary to show Sara Paxton face down in a patch of dirt while John Henry the Terminator forces himself on her?

Why not just have them slaughter kittens? Or strangle puppies? Or force the girls to watch a Pauly Shore movie marathon? Those are all surely horrifying, but I don’t want to watch that on screen. It’s like watching the death of children in a movie. Films like The Mist and Reservation Road managed to depict this without splattering it onto the screen. Hell, even Funny Games handles this stuff off-screen. Call me old fashioned, but for rape scenes, I’d rather just fade to black and trust that it happened off screen.

With all that said, when the big-budget Hollywood movie Slaughter the Kittens comes out, I’ll be first in line to see it.


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  • Tenika
    Let me start off by saying I have not seen LHOTHL but I really don't want to. The problem I think with movies like this is that they actually are nowhere near as horrifying as they think. Movies like this spend so much time trying to shock you that they forget about making the movie any good. Truly scary movies don't need to horrify the audience. I'm telling you the next movie is going to have someone kick a baby in the face. You heard it hear first.
  • Normally I'd probably defend graphic depictions of rape and violence as heightening the impact of the act (which, in a horror movie, is generally appropriate), but I just watched a movie that I'm embargoed from talking about that I'm going to utterly mutilate for it's depictions of violence, rape, and other nasty things, so I would feel a bit hypocritical. But then again, the movie I saw full of violence and rape was a "comedy."

    Anyway, I get what you're saying Kevin, though I probably don't really agree with it, in that people who go to these movies sometimes want to see that stuff. I would, however, be entirely on board with you in regards to you not liking the movie - it is entirely possible that a person understands a movie completely and still doesn't like it. I'm so no one missed the "message" of Epic Movie, but we all still hated it.
  • Observe & Report?
  • Not supposed to talk about it. ;)
  • Tenika
    So when can you talk about it? :)
  • I just think you're squeamish and it's normal to have that feeling when seeing rape being depicted on screen...although it wasn't the first or last time it will be...it's a serious and violent thing it happens in real life...art imitates life

    If you took the rape scenes out of these great films they wouldn't be the same....it's uncomfortable for a reason and it always isn't for exploitation purposes...

    Straw Dogs, Platoon, A Clockwork Orange, Rosemary's Baby, Boys Don't Cry, Deliverance

    Last House on the Left is a "exploitation" horror film it was originally and so is the remake....did you understand this concept before viewing the remake?...I Spit On Your Grave is on the same lines...the point is to shock the audience to a disturbing level...and it seems to have worked on you very well...

    [youtube yKCys3sd8Bw http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yKCys3sd8Bw youtube]
  • "these scenes are not really shocking any more like the original" This is very very sad that we are so numb to this that no one cares anymore. This has got to be the worst thing any man could do to any woman and we are okay with it on film. I say let people think what they want to and let it go from there. Some of the craziest films I have seen made my mind wandered and THAT is what scared the crap out of me, not what was or wasn't on screen.
  • b.rae
    WRONG. the worst thing a man can do to a woman is the dutch oven.
  • Frighty Mcgee
    As someone who writes and makes horror movies, I can say that what you don't show can have a lot more impact than what you do show. Many horror filmmakers today seem to miss that and push these visuals on audiences that don't need to be there. But because of some primal dark side to younger gens and even to an extent some older folks, they eat it up.

    I personally don't have a problem with seeing those things on screen. For me, they SHOULD have a purpose and not just be gratuitous in nature. Sometimes the director wants to make the audience uncomfortable, they leave these visions, these actions on screen for obscene amounts of time or show way more than what's actually needed to get an idea across. Sometimes it's just for the sake of shocking people.

    Whatever it's for, it does work. It gets butts in the seats. That's what all studios want and directors and so on down the line. As long as audiences eat it up, it doesn't matter what level your tastes are at, the movies will keep delivering.

    Unnecessary? Yeah, in most cases. But everyone wants to emulate these movies that caused this stir back then such as the original LHOTL. What the people remaking them today don't get is that it's been done, the affect is way weaker than it was back then. What they do get is that it's cheap cinema and makes money.

    Even Wes Craven talked about how some of the things in the old movie were inappropriate for the new movie. Why they made the rape scene the way they did with the new movie, who knows. But it did it's job.
  • your review sums up why I'm not a fan of Takeshi Miike's stupid movies.
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