The movie was extremely tame compared to a lot of the other exploitation flicks and gratuitous horror movies out there. Many of which where made decades ago (Texas Chainsaw Massacre, I Spit On Your Grave). It's okay if some of the imigary was too intense for you, but it does not mean that anyone who accepts it as entertainment for entertainment's sake is "pretty fucked in the head". That is along the same argument that kids who play GTAIII are 75% more likely to go shoot a cop because the video game desensitized them to the point of being totaly removed from truth, reality and consequence, which is a massive cop-out. I can go watch a movie like that, or like Hostel or like Dawn of the Dead 04 and thouroughly enjoy them because I know that they are just movies. That's it. It's karo-blood, latex and grease paint. It's not real, and I am pretty sure that anyone who has worked in an ICU or dealt with someone who suffered a massive trauma like those potrayed in The Hills have Eyes would tell you that they actualy looked pretty darned fake (thank god for suspension of disbelief).
What about the horror/thriller flicks that won great critical acclaim? Silence of the Lambs? Jacobs Ladder? Am I fucked up because I thought it was cool that Lecter disemboweled a gaurd and strung him up as some sick sculpture before carving the face off another guard and wearing it like a mask to make his escape?
And if you want to talk about expoliting viewers emotions, let's talk about other big movies that did just that. Titanic, for instance, put too much stock in one dimensional, cliched stereotypical characters that were all too easy to identify as "the jealouse, schemeing boyfriend", the "poor little rich girl who really wanted to be normal" and the "uber-romantic, uber-sappy super transient with a heart of gold". These characters were there strictly to illicit reactions from the viewers. By the end of the movie you were supposed to be thinking "man I hate that Billy Zane. I hope he dies. And I sure hope that little Leo can float away to happiness with Big Kate."
Then we have a movie like "The Passion of the Christ". A movie that was made specificly to guilt trip you into going to chruch. Watching a universaly known and loved figure like Jesus being brutally tortured for two hours is just another way to exploit the viewers emotions. They might as well have put your grandmother or your favorite kitten on that cross.
As far as needing movies like that to get our thrills these days... again, do some research. You may be surprised to find that the horror/thriller genre is almost as old as cinema it's self. Rape, murder, sadistic torture... it's all there. Hell, the first motion picture ever made was Edison's version of Frankenstein. Go a few thousand years back and you have the Gladiators... REAL life and death situations with blood, gore and needless suffering abound, all for the sake of entertainment.
I think you need to stop blaming the movies and start focusing your disdain on human nature in general. If you didn't like the movie, fine, so be it, just don't keep such a self-rightous attitude about it, because I can pretty much assure you that your feelings are quite misdirected.
Besides, The Hills Have Eyes was downright tame compared to 75% of the stuff on the video store shelves. Still a good movie.
