Poll: Is Gore Truly Scary?

[axlryder]

Gore can be scary, if used well. A good portion of fear is the unknown, but I think another portion is the worst realization of something that we're anticipating, often in an unexpected (yet instantly understandable) way. For instance, to me, being in a room full of spiders is pretty scary, but just having the spiders eat the person? Well yeah, kind of disturbing, but not really horrifying. I mean, it's a room full of spiders, what did you expect would happen? Horrifying might be having the people think they escaped just fine with a couple of bites, but then having had an egg sack become implanted in someones eyeball and then having the baby spiders eat their way out and swiftly spreading all over their body. To me, that would be kind of horrifying, and pretty gory. For instance, in paranormal activity 4 (which sucked btw), the only part that I really felt built real tension

Spoiler

was the knife scene, and they wasted that potential by not really doing anything with it.

It's all about mixing visceral and psychological elements. The new Silent Hill film, unfortunately, COMPLETELY misses the point, and forgets that the games are scary because they DON'T just rely on gore to disturb the audience.

I think Cronenberg does a good job with that. Though, if you're pretty well immune to being scared by any brand of physical duress, then obviously that stuff won't work for you.

Pure gore though? Eh. We've all been so inundated with violence that I think most of us are desensitized to straight gore.

 

[WanderingFool]

Gore, by itself, isnt all that scary. Its one of the reasons I dont waste my time with the Saw movies. Drenching the film roll with blood doesnt scare people.

What really scares people is the unkown and what dangers my be lurking.

 

[Extra-Ordinary]

I don't find it scary, but disturbing.
I tend to freak our more if there's less blood actually, especially if it looks real. That's what made the demo for The Last Of Us kind of rattle my cage. It just seems more realistic than "this one wound has lost more blood than the human body even holds".
That said, gore of not, I start covering my eyes once teeth and nails start getting messed with.

 

[Risingblade]

It's more gross than scary

 

[StBishop]

It's unsettling.

It's not scary.

There's gifs on the internet of actual people dying. Films cannot compete on that level and I don't know why they would even want to.

 

[FrozenCones]

Truly terrifying.

 

[xshadowscreamx]

gore is not scary, but enjoyable.

 

[Headdrivehardscrew]

Not sure it's meant to be proper 'scary' - the way I see it it's used mostly to induce discomfort, as we all - well, most of us - like to remain physically intact. When watching skater or parkour clips where people deliberately risk life and limb and sometimes have very unpleasant encounters with stationary objects and the forces of gravity, most viewers will experience a solid, gut-wrenching feeling of discomfort, as the pain observed is very real, and anyone who has experienced a crash or fall similar to the one observed is bound to relate to it on a very, very basic level, without thinking too much about it.

Gore, to me, is different on many a level, as the body horror, the disintegration of the human physique and the buckets of blood are generally well-crafted displays of a very specific art, that of the special effects and makeup artists. Within the story/action of the movie, they are to be taken at face value and can cause discomfort in the viewer (we're not talking about the minority that's getting aroused here), but I think it really works best as a tool, a means, one chord in the piece that is the whole movie with an at least somewhat coherent story and - cherry on top - a moral dilemma of sorts.

I think Evil Dead does the nasty bits quite well, even though it was dirt cheap to produce. The pencil bit always gets to me, as it is just nasty. The makeup effects were more impressive twenty years back, but that's pretty much a given. The trees of rage and rape still disturb me, but I've repeatedly used them to approach the real issue of rape of women, which is normally not done by animated trees.

As for the remake - rot in hell. Then again, in this genre, we need to stick together so I'll definitely go watch it. But I think it's bad style to remake the already struggling classics of a fringe genre, come up with some new shit of your own, gosh darn it please with sugar frosting on top.

Army of Darkness is one of my favourite movies, I prefer the Singapore cut. I never got it and I never will why some of the best scenes of this movie have to be cut in 90% of all editions, it's a shame of Lucasian proportions. The windmill scene just needs to be complete and best left alone. It's a hilarious movie and the best work of Bruce Campbell so far. This is the only movie that sees me sad because there never was a second serving of sorts. It's absolutely not in my body horror/gore bin, though. It's more of an over-the-top slapstick comedy with tiny minute horror elements in it.

 

[CrimsonBlaze]

Gore is more disturbing than scary.

Seeing someone getting eviscerated, having fountains of blood coming out of a body, or limbs flying in the air and landing all over the place, does not instill the same amount of psychological scares are phobias, unseen dangers and figures, and a slow, impending doom that is unknown to the audience.

 

[[Kira Must Die]]

Yes, it can be, but it depends on how you use it. Just like anything else.

 

[Whateveralot]

N'really. I voted "other".

It's not necessarily scary; it's disturbing. People MIGHT concider this scary, when they're afraid of gore. If they're not (like me), It's just disturbing.

I don't find it disturbing, either, because it's just a movie. I was massively disappointed when I went to see a Saw movie in the local cinema.

 

[Zanderinfal]

Generally no, but it can be mildly disturbing if done right (I have yet to see a game do it better then Condemned). However, that doesn't mean it can't freak people out. In a video game I could pummel an old lady to death with a piece semi sharp metal shrapnel and I wouldn't care, but in real life nosebleeds make my skin crawl. Depends on the context really.

 

[Setrus]

There's gifs on the internet of actual people dying. Films cannot compete on that level and I don't know why they would even want to.

And I find it truly horrifying that people make those...

Anyway, on topic. I actually voted 'yes', but I say that with the caveat that a LITTLE gore is scary, a LOT of gore is just silly and fun.
Take Dawn of War 1-2 for instance, there are kill animations there so filled with puffs of red blood that you'd think the subject to it would be nothing but a baloon filled with it, it makes it silly and nothing you take seriously.

But in Dark Messiah, an old game, I know, there's this dream where you stab your dance-partner, and even though there's very little blood, it comes across as far worse than the earlier example.

...then again I guess this could aslo be phrased "Is violence scary?" :-/

 

[likalaruku]

After watching horror for 22 years, I'm desensitized to gore to the point of finding it funny. Furthermore, I'm familiar with severe medical deformations & have seen every congenital birth defect known to man, & I'm desensitized to that too.

Well, there are a couple of things I won't watch because I find them to be in profoundly bad taste, such as "Slaughtered Vomit Dolls" torture porn exploitation films, & anything with real or fake animal cruelty.

 

[Nouw]

"You don't create fear with gore. You create disgust," as the wise James Cameron once said. I completely agree. Both fear and gore is the sensation of discomfort, but they are different kinds of discomfort for different reasons.

 

[Zykon TheLich_v1legacy]

I'm terrified of things being cut, slit, slashed, sliced, etc. Anything mutilation. It gives me the shivers just thinking about it :|

We're exactly the opposite there. I actually like seeing that, in a strange way. xD

I can understand why it would "rub" people the wrong way though!

How can you like seeing it? O.O

Weirdly it's just the actual process of seeing it happen is what freaks me out.

The aftermath doesn't bother me at all..

I have a similar "problem". Chopping, hacking, bludgeoning, gunshot wounds, being torn limb from limb, no problem. As soon as you get a blade being drawn across flesh, doesn't even have to cut, I can't stand it. Most of Texas chainsaw massacre was fine but that bit at the start when the crazy guy starts cutting himself with a razor and then attacks the rest of them...AAAAAAHHHH!

 

[Casual Shinji]

I initially voted 'no', but gore can bring about a terrifying effect by way of bodyhorror (if used correctly).

Cronenberg's The Fly is by no means a scary movie, but it is a horrific movie that does facinate and captivate through the use of physical deformaties.

Gore is fear of the physical and our own body, while the traditional "scary" is fear of the psychological and our own mind.

 

[RustlessPotato]

Not really. Gore usually brings out disgust etc... A good "scary" film will have you tense and watch over your shoulders. That's why I don't count the Saw films etc as scary. It doesn't make me tense. It doesn't make me say "what's that sound" when I hear my cat doing its nightly antics at night .

 

[Gaiseric]

Not scary. Unnerving at times, but not scary.

To me gore in a horror movie can make me think, "Uh oh, stuff is definitely going down" and if done right can help set the scene. That's as far as it goes for me though.

 

[Amaury_games]

I thought Inconvenient Truth was terrifying, but don't find Gore all that scary anymore.

Truly terrifying.

What makes this most funny for me is that Al Gore was the first thing that came to my mind when I saw this thread's title and I had to ponder for a sec "Wow! I didn't know Al Gore made people so uncomfortable with his movie and message that people are really scared of him now!"

XD