I think it’s pretty safe to say that I am NOT a fan of scary movies. Growing up, I was always pretty sensitive to disturbing images, and horror films scared THE crap out of me. The old black and white films were scary because of the more subtle images and off-camera implications, leaving the horrific elements to the imagination. The newer films tend to use more blatant visuals of gore as well as intricate elements of evil. And, most importantly, as a follower of Jesus Christ, I do not generally feel comfortable filling my mind with such disturbing things.
All around…not a fan.
And yet, there came a time, last summer, when curiosity concerning one particular horror film got the best of me and I broke down and watched most of it. This film is probably the most popular horror film of the nineties and I’m sure anyone born in the eighties or prior can guess the movie on their first or second try. I grew up knowing its basic plot, as well as the plots of all its sequels, and yet I never did see the film in its entirety.
As I watched and the story unfolded, I was actually quite surprised at how very cheesy I found the movie to be. Still, I held out for the notorious twist in the plot that had people raving all those years ago and would elicit the smashing “I didn’t see that coming!” response. The actions of the bad guys were indeed disturbing, which made me ask all the more, “What could the psychological motivation possibly be for the villains to commit such heinous crimes?” (Actually, it was probably more like, "What the crap made them do that?") And finally, the denouement…the unfolding of the plot!
“Huh?”
This was literally my response. The reason that one of the bad guys went absolutely insane and murdered several people in horrific ways was essentially because (spoiler alert) his father had an affair with his girlfriend’s mother, which led to his parent’s divorce. Yes, that is horrible. That will most definitely leave scars on a person. However…I think, because such behavior is so common-place in modern society, this motive seemed to me a highly implausible scenario for someone going that crazy.
Sufficed to say, the twist was a bit of a let down for me. I wondered, “That was it? How did that twist cause for the movie to accumulate such a popular appeal?”
When I really thought about it, and when I think about other books and movies from the nineties, I actually find that I too was shocked by much lesser things as a child. It took much less to shock people back then, in general. Society was more sensitive, especially in the pre-crime-show-frenzy days.
I remember the very first season of the original CSI. The outcome of the plot in each and every episode was so mind-boggling, interesting, and…shocking, and yet so tame compared to the twists that are thrown into the newer episodes these days. As the twisting increased, crime show after crime show came out, all with their own spin of creepy villainous behavior, and we grew hungry for more of the twisted and the disturbing. Society seems to have been numbed, relatively quickly, to the things that were once shocking. After all, the shock-effect was so appealing initially, it became addicting. “Wow! That’s crazy! How sick and twisted. I didn’t see that coming!”
The things that were shocking twenty years ago, or even ten years ago, are not so shocking anymore. (I know that I personally feel like there is not much left to be shocked by.) I’m sure that, once this trend for shock was established, the business wheels of many entertainment industries began to fly. I can just see organizations in existence, consisting of countless teams of people who are appointed with the task of coming up with the most twisted and even disgusting scenarios available to the imagination, in order to keep up with an audience that has been utterly numbed to what was once known as the sensation of shock.
I will be the first to concede that I have been numbed right along with everyone else. Maybe not as much, because I do still hate horror films, but my confusion over the plot of the horror film I watched tells me that the evolution of shock value has definitely had an influence on me. What seemed to me a weak plot twist was once considered to be shocking enough to produce crazy, cold-blooded killers. I would venture to say that such a plot twist would not carry much satisfaction with a modern audience.
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