Ask JKM a Question #25: Are there any extreme movies I wish I could un-see?

A reader and terrific blogger, Patrick, writes:

“A friend of mine once told me that he avoided certain movies based on their descriptions because he didn't want their images "renting space in his head." This has always made sense to me, and there are films I am unlikely ever to watch no matter how great the acclaim for them is."

"Jeffrey Sconce of the blog Ludic Despair recently called "The Human Centipede 2: The Full Sequence" "the best horror film I've seen in a decade," but that doesn't mean I'm going to watch it, any more than I will "Hostel 2" or (probably) "Martyrs" (although I did somehow work up the nerve to watch "Irreversible," and admired it)."

"You see a lot of films with extreme content, since that's in the nature of your work. Have there ever been things you wish you could have unseen? And have you ever avoided any films based on descriptions of disagreeable-sounding content?”

A very smart and terrific question, Patrick.  I appreciate you asking it.

I recently watched and reviewed Irreversible, and as the fire-extinguisher murder sequence went on and on, I had to look away.  I came back to it because the scene went on for so long, and because it’s my responsibility to pay attention. 

But…yikes. 

Similarly, when I was recently watching I Spit on Your Grave (1978), I did not watch in its entirety the scene in the bath tub with the straight razor (where the villain’s genitals are sliced open and the bath water turns blood red…).  I delegated that responsibility to my wife, who enjoys that particular film more than I do.  I had seen the scene before (when I reviewed the book for Horror Films of the 1970s), so I felt I could turn away this time around.

In general, I’m not actually a big gore fan, but in both of the instances above, what proved so powerful was the sense of passion/energy evoked by the on-screen gore.  When our emotions are engaged, the violence takes on a new color or shading, so-to-speak. 

You may have noticed that I haven’t yet reviewed The Human Centipede here on the blog.  I saw the film more than a year ago and was, actually, mesmerized by it.  I couldn’t get it out of my head.  It succeeded largely on the basis of skillful implication, and on viewer imagination regarding what horrors were happening.  My problem, however, is that I haven’t been able to really understand what its social value or point is.  So if I wrote I review, I’d be saying something along the lines of “the film is remarkably well-done…but for what?”  Just for the sake of human sickness?  I’m not saying there isn’t a message or point to it all, only that I haven’t been able to discern it.  I was too…nauseated.

I haven’t watched The Human Centipede 2 yet in part because of this very dynamic, and in part because I have heard it’s really, really disgusting, and I have to time these things right.  I’ve just subjected my wife to a two-and-a-half month cycle of Deliverance, Straw Dogs, I Spit on Your Grave, Irreversible and Last House on the Left, and I don’t want to overtax her more than necessary, since she’s sweet and patient enough to watch all these movies with me in the first place. 

But one of these days…

Is there anything specifically I wish I could un-see?  You know it’s funny, I find bad movies much more depressing and toxic to my brain than I do a really well-done, if gory, horror film.  While gore may shock and disgust me, it doesn’t  tend to depress or debauch me.  A really bad or stupid movie -- one that uses violence thoughtlessly, for example -- is much more likely to upset me, I suppose.

That fact established, there is indeed a scene in a horror film I liked that stayed with me when I tried to go to sleep at night after a screening.  It was actually in Rob Zombie’s Halloween II (2009).  There was a scene in that film, not entirely unlike Irreversible’s fire-extinguisher moment, wherein Michael Myers pulped a man’s face.  It was just really, really gruesome, and for some reason, I played it over in my mind a few times afterwards.

Also, and this is weird, but I found the Old Crone monster in Insidious (2011) scary on some kind of  psychological level.  I liked the film very much, but felt that in some ways it was warmed-over Poltergeist.  So I was shocked (and alarmed) at night, to find myself awake in bed thinking of that Old Crone...just patiently waiting on the Other Side for the right moment to sneak into our reality.  

It's strange and unexpected, some times, what images stay with you after you watch a movie.  I never would have guessed that Insidious had the power to disturb my peace of mind...but it did.

Don't forget to ask me a question at Muirbusiness@yahoo.com