Current horror trends (continued)

As a follow-up to yesterday's item on ABC/Nightline's analysis of the current trends in horror movies, I give you an article an article by David Edelstein from February 6th: Now Playing at Your Local Multiplex...

Edelstein presents a well-rounded examination of this recent sub-genre, reminding us that Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ" fits neatly in with "Hostel" and "The Devil's Rejects."

Unlike the old seventies and eighties hack-’em-ups (or their jokey remakes, like Scream), in which masked maniacs punished nubile teens for promiscuity (the spurt of blood was equivalent to the money shot in porn), the victims here are neither interchangeable nor expendable. They range from decent people with recognizable human emotions to, well, Jesus.

I might go so far as to suggest that Gibson's film helped pave the way for many of the current wave of shockers to get made and released.

Also interesting is the way Edelstein connects 9/11 and its aftermath to our appetite for these films.

Post-9/11, we’ve engaged in a national debate about the morality of torture, fueled by horrifying pictures of manifestly decent men and women (some of them, anyway) enacting brutal scenarios of domination at Abu Ghraib. And a large segment of the population evidently has no problem with this.

I can certainly buy the argument that the constant coverage of the Abu Ghraib tortures and the debate which followed have brought the topic of torture out into the open, in many ways desensitizing us to the idea. If shock-filmmakers still intend to shock us, they now need to compete with the hostage beheading videos on the internet.

Finally, Edelstein admits with Nightline never will:

I am complicit in one sense, though. I’ve described all this freak-show sensationalism with relish, enjoying—like these filmmakers—the prospect of titillating and shocking. Was it good for you, too?