Test Your Might: Round 2

[MovieBob]

Test Your Might: Round 2

MovieBob offers up some more films to test your movie constitution.

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[lazarus1209]

Irreversible made me more uncomfortable than any other movie I have ever seen. It opens with brutal beating with a fire extinguisher - I swear you can feel every blow - and then climbs to what Bob understates as the brutalization of Bellucci. That scene goes on forever and never looks away.

And then the ending? Or rather the beginning? It's so damn sweet that it makes the rest of the movie that much more depressing. I'd recommend it, but you might hate me for doing so.

 

[RTR]

Just when I was thinking that more movies should give "let's do it backwards" a shot.

 

[Crazy Zaul]

lol when I typed 'The torture show' (the other name of 'the bloodsucking freaks' one) into lovefilm it came up with 'The Yorkshire show' and a Bob Monkhouse stand up show.

 

[Darth_Payn]

I kind of feel sorry for the actors in those movies Bob listed. Did they even know what they signed up for? And how much of what they were paid went to therapy?

captcha: STAY SAFE
Says the schlock-horror director to the actor/victim

 

[SadakoMoose]

So, I was reading this list and remembered back to when I was still watching all those Marble Hornets videos and then I thought. "Where do we go from here?" And by that, I mean with horror movies. We've already made films that go about as far as they can with gore, taboo themes, etc like the ones on this list. We're beginning to reach a peak as far as found footage and viral stuff goes (ie, Marble Hornets). Of course, we can't forget screamers. Those things are freaking everywhere. Mainstream horror films are almost meaningless now as far as old formulas are concerned, and the gory stuff that everyone thought was replacing it (Saw, Hostel, etc) has kind of got to the point where if it went any further, it would never see a mainstream release. I'm not trying to say that Cabin in the Woods is the official capstone of the last 3 decades of mainstream horror movies and that we should just bury it all and seal it away because there's nowhere else to go but down. But I'm just kind of wondering if we'll ever really see that peak of terror, the point at which we can no longer make films any scarier within the realm of human comprehension. It's kind of like those peppers that top the Scoville scale. At this point, we have a pepper (the Trinidad Moruga Scorpion) that is as hot as law enforcement grade pepper spray. Why would ANYONE eat that? Oh sure, there are people who would happily take that challenge, but it's certainly not a majority. And even then, can you make a pepper any spicier than that without maiming or fatally poisoning someone? So with horror films, could we ever cross that Lovecraft threshold? Make something so scary that it could actually hurt the mind of a grown adult. Not like "oh yeah, I saw IT when I was 10 and it scarred me for life lol." I mean actual sanity compromising material.

 

[esperandote]

irreversible really got me intrigued, specially since it's monica bellucci

captcha: way to go donny!

more like, way to go bobby!

 

[Dr.Susse]

A really bad test your might movie; which was way to wrong and brutal for me to sit through, is called Begotten.

It isn't shot like a typical movie (You'll have to see what I mean) and is probably described like a more warped Eraserhead. Seriously read the wiki description before you try and watch this one because it is 80 minutes of pretty disturbing stuff. If anyone makes it to the end (It's viewable over the net) you have a stronger gut than I do.

 

[esperandote]

16:00 into Irreversible and i'm already feeling sick but only because of the camera movement. I haven't gotten to the good parts yet.

 

[Kargathia]

Irreversible made me more uncomfortable than any other movie I have ever seen. It opens with brutal beating with a fire extinguisher - I swear you can feel every blow - and then climbs to what Bob understates as the brutalization of Bellucci. That scene goes on forever and never looks away.

And then the ending? Or rather the beginning? It's so damn sweet that it makes the rest of the movie that much more depressing. I'd recommend it, but you might hate me for doing so.

16:00 into Irreversible and i'm already feeling sick but only because of the camera movement. I haven't gotten to the good parts yet.

I was quite curious as to whether Irreversible would make it to this list, as I consider it a genuinely good movie. It sets out to have the audience experience the level of dazed shock and revulsion the main characters are experiencing, and does so very well - although I'm pretty sure I don't have the stomach to watch it ever again.

Perhaps the most disturbing realisation is knowing that everything it shows happens on a weekly (or even daily) basis in any metropolis.

 

[Nouw]

Here's a little neat trivia for Irreversible: The score, yes there is a soundtrack in this film , is made by Thomas Bangalter. More commonly known as, one half of Daft Punk.

 

[mykalwane]

You made my day by mentioning Blood Sucking Freaks. I've seen that movie during the year I had Netflicks which was shared with family. I be watching odd movies that weren't others taste much like Little Foxes by myself since no one else cared to watch. This was around Halloween looking for movies. This is one of the movies that I still have no idea what to think of.

 

[gardian06]

While I've never seen Irreversible, your write up does have me intrigued by it's supposed point. I assume it's trying to get the audience to look at why they cheer for the hero in revenge flicks getting brutal payback. Without the context of "He assaulted/killed my wife/loved one", it's just brutality. Does the context justify the act? Does knowing the context after the fact make what we felt less valid or wrong?

I'm thinking about something like the Tom Jane Punisher movie. If all we saw was the Punisher systematically destroying the lives of these people, we'd be disgusted. It'd be a horror movie, and Tom Jane would be the villian. Does knowing they murdered his family make his actions any less deplorable?

That metaphor probably would have worked better with a better movie, but still, food for thought.

this actually has to do with standard story plot arcs in that we see the (usually main) character experiencing a "typical day" whatever that may include whether it be "ontop of the world," or "I am the world's shit magnet." so that the audience can somehow directly relate to, or at least connect to the character when the first inciting incident happens (usually called the plot twist, or start of the arc). then because we have at the very least grown to relate to this character when this event happens we now have a reason to cheer for the character when they get payback for that thing that happened, or sympathize with them when there world gets worse. even though this is more readily applied to action or horror movies it can also be applied to any genre, but you have to look for it more. when you see that this is going on (purposefully being put on an emotional roller-coaster) you will also realize just how the only character(s) that have any kind of 3-dimensional value (if at all) are those characters that you are supposed to be rooting for/sympathizing with.

so seeing a movie out of order (the retribution act first) technically you do loose the context as to why this person is doing such a thing. like for example you walk down the street, and see 2 people fighting, and you know neither of them. the "decent" thing to do is to stop the fight, and maybe figure out why it happened, but if you know one of the people, and not the other, and know that they have "good" character then you might have the inclination to help them whatever that might entail. this is the same reason that when the media want to paint a person as a "monster" they will spend the highest majority of their time focusing on the actions they did, and maybe never telling the reasons the person had for doing it, or anything that could give the person a relatable situation, or something that people might be sympathetic to.

to directly answer the question. yes context does mean that you are more likely to be sympathetic to the (usually main) character, and their actions

 

[AvsJoe]

My cousin gave a big thumbs up and a recommendation for me to watch Irreversible. She is big into really fucked-up horror films and I love watching what she recommends. The other films on this list all sound like fun too! I hope the Test Your Might becomes a regular (or at least bi-annual) Intermission feature.

 

[Lt._nefarious]

I thought Quarantine (yes, that one with Jennifer Carpenter) was really nasty, I had to turn it off after about half an hour cause I was so scared. And apparently (according to Movie Bob) that was really tame in comparison to those films. It sounds like a challenge to me!

*later*

Holy shit! Unclean, unclean! Kill it! Kill it with fire!

*ahem*

Yeah I'ma just stick to my not-quasi-rape-and-torture-porn horror...

 

[Superior Mind]

I wonder if Bob's ever seen the French/Spanish film 'I Will Walk Like A Crazy Horse'. That was my ultimate 'Test Your Might' film. Not because it's got anything particularly hard to watch in it in terms of general subject matter but because it is an idiotic mish-mash of over-obvious symbolism and gross, unnecessary, and nonsensical imagery. It has a stupid narrative and plot and its message wants to both beat you around the head and insist how fucking clever and subtle it is. I saw an interview with the director Fernando Arrabal about it too, in some circles he's seen as some visionary unconventional filmmaker, but he was a self-indulgent creep who thought he was the messiah.

Anyway, my point is if you ever want to test your lasting power as a film watcher, give it a try. I won't give away too much but if you ever wanted to see a film that features cannibalism, incest, necrophilia, genital mutilation, a man eating a faeces-covered flower out of a shemale's bottom and two naked men being put in a giant plastic ball and rolled down a steep hill as blasphemers, (my reaction at time of watching I believe was "What in the name of blue fuck is going on?!",) then this is the film for you - and also you need serious. Fucking. Help.

 

[Treefingers]

I love Irreversible, it's a fantastic piece of cinema if you can get past its brutality.

 

[WWmelb]

To be honest i really hated Irreversible. I thought it was tacky and contrived. The only thing that even got it any awareness was the 8minute rape scene. Overall shot poorly, bad sound editing, worse visual editing, and... god... who the hell was in charge of subtitling that film? Would be fine if you are fluent in french and spanish, but ... Why.. why... for an english speaking country release would you subtitle the french spoken dialogue into english, and the spanish spoken dialogue into french if at all?

Anyways, thats my two cents...

And i'd put my own choice on there for serious disturbingnessality... a greek film called Dogtooth... nothing TOO over the top visually but the sickness behind what is going on disturbed the piss out of me.