Why DO We Love Gore So Much?

Hi, my name is Iggy and I. . . I'm a gore-a-holic. I admit it. I'm the type of guy who thought "Hostel" wasn't gory enough. The type of guy who had no interest in seeing "Saving Private Ryan" until I heard about how gory and violent the 1st 30 minutes were. And I should've known better but fell for the After Dark Horrorfest hype and hoped, against all reason, that the films really WOULD be too graphic and disturbing for the "general public".

Now mind you, I don't think there's anything wrong with any of this. I LOVE gore and I don't care who knows it. And lots of my friends do, too. And so do a lot of the folks on this message board. But recently I got to wondering:
Why? I've thought about this for a little while, and the only thing I can come up with, and it doesn't ring true even to me, is something like a theory a friend of mine has about video games. He never plays sports games, because as he puts it: "In real life, I can go play baseball. I wanna play a game where I get to do something I can't do, like shoot up zombies." Are we attracted to gore because this is something that's (hopefully) outside our life experience? Or is there some other reason?

Again, I'm not passing judgment. I'm just wondering why so many people love something that seems so counterintuitive. We'd FREAK if we saw this stuff happen to anyone in real life. Why DO we seek it out on screen?

I think you may be on to something, here. I am a fan of hot and spicy food. And sometimes, it's even fun when you overdo it a little. If you've ever eaten something REALLY spicy, it doesn't just burn your mouth; you sweat, your heart races, your eyes tear. . . it's glorious. On the side of Blair's Death Sauce, a personal favorite, it says: "Feel Alive!" And lemme tell ya, nothing makes you feel quite as alive as a good capsaicin rush. Except maybe a roller coaster. Or some really good gore. Minsk, you may have hit the nail squarely on the head.

I agree. There's lots of movies I've seen once or twice that I don't remember a thing about; I couldn't tell you who starred in them, or how it ended. But I remember the gore, particularly if it's done well.

Preach it, brotha! Who among us hasn't done this?

I always felt the same way about violent video games. back in the Sega days of the late 90's, I had a job I absolutely hated, and nothing calmed me down better than coming home and pounding the shit out of my opponents in "Mortal Kombat 3" or "Street Fighter". Unless Ryu started kicking my ass too much; Goddam game made him way too powerful. Used to piss me off. I ususally used to play as Blanka. NOTHING more gratifying than when he'd grapple some poor bastard and bite his head. Except maybe a good ol' bloody Fatality from MK.

I have to agree that there is acertain "Wow!" factor to film gore. Earlier posts stated that they can appreciate the art of a well done kill, and so can I. But more to the point is the visceral, little kid reaction we all get when we see something spectacularly gory (like the opening scene in "Ghost Ship", a favorite of mine) and say "Wow! Did you SEE that?!" I don't think having that little kid in us is so bad.

Brave admission around these parts. I admire your guts. I'm an attorney, and I worked in a prosecutor's office for a little while. I saw some autopsy photos on a murder case I was working on, and I can say that the effects people, when they do it well, really capture the effects realistically. I was kind of surprised by that. I mean, how would most of us know what this stuff's supposed to look like (keep in mind, this is back in the days before the internet was really big and stuff like Ogrish was at our fingertips)?

And I had to chuckle when I read your description of the Final Destination movies. I've been describing them as death by Rube Goldberg for years. Almost as amusing as it is creepy and nerve wracking (I mean, how do you guard against something like that?).

Who DOESN'T like a good head shot?!

My 2 favorites so far are the scene in the original Dawn of the Dead when the cop busts into the room & shot the guy w/ the shotgun & blew his head clean off (THAT one I watched in slo mo a couple times), and the scene in "Wrong Turn" where the deputy gets out of the car & says "Wait a minute. Who's dead?" & gets the arrow right thru the eye. A friend spoilered it for me and I STILL laughed out loud.

While we're on the subject of decapitations, I think my favorite is an oldie but a goodie from "Wolfen." Earlier in the film Albert Finney was discussing decapitations in the French Revolution w/ another character. According to Al, a scientist wanted to see if the heads remained alive after beins severed, and he'd run up to the basket and grab them and stare into their eyes, and reported several that looked at him, blinked, and tried to talk. Of course, later in the film Al's boss gets decapitated, and his head sits on the ground, eyes wide, mouthing words as the body falls down behind it. Effects not so great, but TERRIFIC idea. Creeped the 12 year old me out considerably.

Oh, and while I'm at it, I watched another obscure Netflix B movie w/ my pals last night, and mwentioned this thread. The guy who posited the above video game theory said he thinks the reason we love gore so much is because there's some savage, mostly repressed (mostly) in our now "civilized" society part of our brains that wants. . . yea, NEEDS violence & gore for some reason. Probably a primitive survival mechanism. A theory described by Stephen King in the "Danse Macabre", and which he termed "Feeding the Alligator." This makes sense to me. It explains the visceral rush, anyway. And if anyone remembers "The Prophecy" (no, not the Walken masterpiece, the 70's mercury in the water spawns a mutant masterpiece), human fetuses supposedly pass thru every lower stage of evolution (reptilian, amphibian, etc) before maturing into a human being. If there's any truth to that, we still carry these bestial parts with us, suppressed to a greater or lesser degree by evolution. BUt since they're still in there, they've gotta be taken care of somehow. . . .

Now Darkmite, there's no need for name caling.

I don't think there's any sexual charge as such implied in the term "torture porn". I think what they're trying to say is these films present a voyeuristic look at torture, for those who are titilated by that, in the same manner that regular porn gives people a voyeuristic look at sexual activities. I think they imply that the movies in question are trash because, as you mentioned, "torture is kind of the point of those movies." I agree w/ you that there's more to Hostel than the torture, but some maybe don't see it that way, and think its only purpose is to shock and gore it up with the torture just for the sake of shocking and goring it up w/ the torture.

Actually, as I'm sure many did, I found the MOST shocking thing about Hostel to be the concept. I went into it thinking it was a European organ harvesting ring. When you find out what it really is. . . THAT'S shocking. And in Saw, we never actually SEE the guy saw off his foot. It's done mostly off camera. We are shocked because we KNOW he's doing it, and you truly empathize w/ him becuase of what drove him to it (danger to his family from John's accomplice), but wonder if even under those circumstances you'd do the same or not. I don't personally think there's anything wrong w/ wanting to see this stuff becuase you're (like me) a gorehound at heart. But the point is even the above described moments in both films, BEREFT of ALL visible gore, work for you just as well, if not better, than a graphic display of torture gore would have.

I guess the point is I see where the label comes from, but I agree that these films, at least don't deserve it as a negative epithet (I'm sure imitators and if they're not careful, the sequels, may start earning the label) . Gore and gross-out horror is certainly intended in Hostel, but in both films an exploration of the reactions of human beings under the extreme mental & physical duress of extended physical and mental torture are more the point. I've never read any, but I'd be willing to bet there's a body of literature in psychology out there based on studying those reactions. I'd be curious what they said, and if the makers of Saw & Hostel are very far off.