I have a habit of watching films, and not being able to shut a film down no matter how bad it is - I have to see it to the end. So, I've seen a LOT of crap movies. However, this genre is one of my preferred, and I'm not sure I could even list how many (good or bad) I've seen.
I've seen most of
The Shining, but can't say I've seen it all the way thru. Nor can I say I read it, despite being a King fan and reading most of his stuff. I can say I've gotten a tour of the hotel while travelling in Colorado. I've seen most of the other King stories that made it to film. I gotta say, the one on the Top 10 list is
"It", but I can't say how much was from reading the book or seeing the original film (looking forward to part 2 of the remake coming out next summer). I was disappointed at some of the adaptations of the film, but nothing can scare you like your own imagination (from reading the story). I liked how it was grounded in 1980's (my era), and the multi-faceted approach of the creature, but it all came down to feeding on fear. Yeah, the end is a bit fantastical, but I could roll with it considering all the horrors it created along the way.
I've sought out torture porn, to see what's out there. Of course, there was
8mm, but I always had the voice in my head saying 'this is only a film', mostly because of Nick Cage as the lead
![:\](https://bluelight.org/xf/BL_Images/Orig_Emoji/wrygrin.gif "wry grin :\")
. There was a Korean film called
The Butcher which was...well, Korean, so you know there is no big names, no big budget, no big story - and yet, this is one I'd like to go back to . Premise is a guy who tortures peole to death and films it all to sell videos. He has a husband and wife he captures and his assistant is filming him as he struggles to come up with new and interesting ways to torture the couple. Not deep, a little creative, but I appreciate what they tried with limited budget. I'm also looking into other films in the genre like
I Spit on Your Grave (original and recent remake). Meh...ok. I had more trouble with the original, because I could feel the uncomfortableness of presenting that concept and material back in that era. One that I expected more of, being on that list with
Audition of supposed classics, was
Salo - a film of excess in degredation, but while it was interesting, it wasn't great.
The
Saw series, as well as the first two
Human Centipede films (third was very poor), are all fun rides. Each has that shock value when the originals hit the screens, but after that it was just fun romps in the same areas. I'll appreciate the Saw series a bit more for stringing a plot line across multiple films to make you go back and see the connections.
Probably one I'd have in the Top 10 still for being a mindfuck would be
A Serbian Film. It's not real deep, and if you don't get pulled in I could see you not getting effected like I did. But I could watch at face value as a man gets used and sucked down in over his head with a bad thing that destroys him and his family. I could also watch as the metaphor it intended as a country screws it's citizens to serve it's own needs, without care of how they are in the end. I think the biggest problem for me was how the family was effected. There were several 'cool' scenes like the normal fun films, but there were parts as this came to a close that started gnawing at me saying 'no, this isn't supposed to happen'.
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I'll go back and check my library for what I've seen and what is to be seen. But this is a good topic for me. I'll be back.
