Talk:Splatter film

Genre definition problems

There are several changes that I'd suggest here. First, I'd like us to rethink the "torture porn" moniker. It's not porn any more than the snuff films were porn, in my opinion. But I'll admit I don't have a better name at the moment. I'm open to suggestions. Also I'd suggest introducing a section that discusses graphic violence, slasher, splatter, and splatstick as elements of a film and not necessarily defining the film as part of a genre. For instance, Saving Private Ryan contains graphic violence, but is not a splatter film; it's a war movie. Dawn of the Dead has graphic violence, some of which is clearly splatstick, but I don't think that as a movie it fits neatly into a particular genre, except that of an apocalyptic horror film. Psycho (1960) is not a slasher film, except for its most famous scene. And so on and so forth.

The difference between a gory horror movie and "gorno" is with whom the audience is manipulated to identify and for whom they root: the victim, or the victimizer? Classical horror even at its most gruesome exorcises fear of evil, "gorno" exercises evil. -- Naaman Brown (talk) 15:42, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

I'm going to re-bump this in 2017 here. I believe we need to open a discussion on this problematic concurrence of society vs connoisseur. When looking at the sun heading of torture porn. While the August Underground films are true torture porn, most of what is listed is not. Torture porn goes back further than anything mentioned here. What about Forced Entry; A gay splatter porno? Holocausto Negro? (One of it's English titles is Porno Holocaust). Bad Girl Butcher, both which combines unsimulated sex with gore? K3: Prison In Hell? The original Late Fee (itself remade as a less pornographic film). And it's re-remake Rental, a pornographic reboot. The entire Inquisition series of BDSM films combined blood lust in it's most graphic and primal depiction with pornography. There's a string of 2000s to current Japanese and Italian films know as Splat Tit films. All involving naked mutant, and often demonic or cybernetic, people. Daemon Pussy stands out as the most blatant title though not really pornographic. In so much that a cgi vagina with teeth that eats men and lesbians isn't pornographic, per se. Though this does has sexual and political undercurrents and a moral examination. Killer Worm is this film's male counterpart. My point being torture porn originally had it's own article and while it was far from complete I believe it should be split off once again and flushed out. Simply pointing to a few ignorant critics who named a few horror and thriller films as torture porn, ignoring real torture porn, is a disservice to Wikipedia. Lostinlodos (talk) 15:57, 8 August 2017 (UTC)

Tone

The article employs a very personal tone at a number of points, with phrases such as "As any movie fan will tell you" or "worth a look for die-hard gore fans." AncientToaster (talk) 06:37, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

Apparently much of the article was re-written recently by User:96.230.29.108. I have reverted. I welcome expansion of the article, but these additions are completely unsourced, and fail the core content policies of WP:V, WP:NPOV, and WP:NOR, and delete large sections of sourced content with no explanation. dissolve^talk 07:20, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

Glaring Exclusions

This article requires a section devoted to Asian splatter, given the proliferation of films in the "genre" over the last few decades. A broader, international focus would benefit this article greatly.

I suggest at least a mention of Troma entertainment, if not an entire section.

I realize there is a dearth of acceptable research on this topic, but the existing article is lacking in scope and thoroughness. Deadryann (talk) 07:19, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

Are there some reliable sources you can link to or reference about these topics? If so, feel free to add the sections, or note them here and perhaps another editor can add them. Labeled as B-Class or C-class, this article is far from being complete. dissolve^talk 07:46, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

No mention of the Japanese Guinea Pig series is glaring. Naaman Brown (talk) 15:20, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

1st Saw film

Should the first Saw movie really be considered torture porn? Its sequels definitely should be as they're far gorier, but the first was neither particularly gory nor full of actual torture scenes. Most of the scenes had only implied violence or showed the aftermath of events. Seven (film), which the Saw franchise clearly gathers inspiration from, was gorier and included more torture than the first Saw film. Despite that many people have called Saw torture porn, the term isn't necessarily correct for anything but the subsequent films in the franchise. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.244.112.123 (talk) 05:38, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

David Edelstein seems to disagree, in the article that coined the term. Wikipedia is not a place for editors to publish their own ideas and analysis. If you can find a reliable source that agrees with you, feel free to add it to the article. dissolve^talk 05:44, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

Sure. This article groups in the entire franchise, but it references a press conference with the minds at Twisted Pictures defending that without the gore there would still be an intricate plot, and that their movies are not just gore and torture for the sake of gore and torture. I'm adding a line in this entry linking to that source, simply stating that it has been labeled as such although the creators disagree. Fair enough? 71.244.112.123 (talk) 18:08, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

I agree that Twisted Pictures's reaction to the term "torture porn" would be a good addition and UGO Networks is a notable source. dissolve^talk 18:20, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

I like that approach, because it acknowledges a fair objection while also acknowledging that there is a popular perception of Saw as a 'torture porn' film. Not that all these other movies are just "for the sake of gore and torture", though. GuySperanza (talk) 21:01, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

"Blair Witch" reference

I was about to remove the "Blair Witch" reference for lack of relevance, but when I went to edit it, I saw that there was text in that section that is not displaying on the page. What I'm seeing is this:

'The Blair Witch Project is similar to the 1980 film Cannibal Holocaust. The story in Cannibal Holocaust is told through footage from a group of people making a documentary about a portion of the Amazon which is said to be populated by cannibals. This "mockumentary" format was later used in Blair Witch.

This starts in midsentence of what was originally written, and loses the sentence that explains that the point is to show that splatter films have been influential on many other films. This is evidence that splatter films have influenced a single movie, not many. If you can cite other examples, you should include them. Otherwise, this is good information for (and already on) the page of either movie, but not so relevant to this article. If there aren't other examples available, this section should be removed, as it's very "Blair Witch"-centric and "Blair Witch" is not a splatter film. GuySperanza (talk) 03:01, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Agreed. dissolve^talk 03:54, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

References

Shouldn't "torture porn" have its own separate section?

While there's enough overlap between the two not to merit its own separate article, most stuff I've seen described as torture porn place a particular emphasis on the cruelty of the acts committed rather than necessarily on the gore itself. Yes, I know of Wikipedia:NOR, but I am sure there must be sources out there also noting that (or at the very least discussing "torture porn" as its own genre). 201.190.31.192 (talk) 22:35, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

I agree so-called 'Torture Porn' was/is an offshoot of 'Splatter' not a continuation. Since most or all post-1980 horror can be seen as 'Splatter', it is misleading to make the leap from Dawn of the Dead to Hostel. The article would benefit from a chronological structure. The term poorly-defined term'Splatter' can be retrospectively applied to productions from the very beginning of cinema (pre-cinema Splatter antecedents such as Grand Guignol, even), but the term originates in the late 1970s or early 1980s. Anyone source the George Romero quote? Surely fanzines of the era use the term.

In the absence of alternatives, the most logical approach is to refer to John McCarty's 'Splatter Movies' book as a seminal text on the subject. Certainly this work has been superceded many times over, the contents debated and argued over, obvious omissions lamented, but it still remains the first serious attempt to define the form and place these films in context. From the same era as Danny Peary's exlated 'Cult Movies', the Medved's 'Golden Turkeys', et al, pre-IMDB, pre-YouTube, so many times authors were working from unreliable sources, such as memory, hearsay, rumour - but refreshingly free from pedantry (well, mostly) and abrim with the excitement of discovery (great days).

'Torture Porn' is it's own aberration, another 'last' taboo, it deserves a subsection - a whole other debate, I'd argue it's as much or more the product of Quentin Tarantino's razor blade wielding Mr Blonde dancing to 'Stuck In The Middle ...' as Hills Have Eyes or Texas Chain Saw.

... 1930s - Dwain Esper's 'Maniac' ... Scarlett O'Hara shoots a looter in the face in 1939 ... 1940s had enough gore and violence to sate all tastes in the newsreels ... 1950s - exploding oozing brains in 'Fiend Without A Face' ... 'The Monster From Piedras Blancas' decapitation ... 1960-1980 a long slow build to the motherload, with early intimations of disqueit from such illegitimate and unruly sources as HG Lewis and A. Zapruder ... 1984 sees a gremlin in a blender and goo and fluid of all descriptions flung orgiastically about on screens small and large ...

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