Tuesday, May 01, 2007

Current movie dross

It's good to see Quentin Tarantino having a certified flop. His main oeuvre of ironic dark splatter fun has never appealed to me, and (dare I say it, because he does have his intelligent defenders) has always seemed to me to be the work of an immature man made primarily for immature men.

There are worse films around, though, and it always surprises me that the surge in misogynistic horror (including Australia's own recent entry - "Wolf Creek") has been attracting an audience, but little in the way of public outcry. The Guardian has a good article about this disturbing trend. You would have thought that even "third wave" feminists might have been more vocal about this, but it seems to attract very little attention, apart from the odd scathing review.

Even without the misogynistic element, I just don't get horror generally. Tension and scares are fine, enjoyable even, but a desire to see the blood and guts and body bits dismembered - what exactly is the appeal? Give me Hitchcock and a knife in the back any day over a realistic depiction of decapitation.

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