I liked to read/watch gore as a child because it made me feel grown up that I could “handle it”.
(Why yes, I was called a baby whenever my parents wished to…belittle me.)
Now I am a grown-up so I have no need for it.
I don’t like serious violence that has cruelty behind it. There’s a sort of “cartoon violence” that I can tolerate-- like in some of the Bruce Willis movies. But psychopath torture serial killer-type things-- never have been into those.
I completely agree. You need the website I made people aware of here.
This hasn’t been mentioned, yet: Found footage. They’ve pretty much broken that gimmick. I’m sure there are the occasional ones that are well-made, or at least decently so, but they’ve just become so contrived, particularly the pretzel-twists required to explain why the characters keep the camera rolling. For the most part, they’re lazy filmmaking for those who can’t think of a better way to work within a small budget.
Torture Porn - gore is fine, but ‘oh no! You’re strapped to a chair and there is nothing you can do about the drill going into your thigh!’ is just not compelling plot.
Child Abuse - In the past I just felt it was an easy trope for emotional manipulation, but now I have kids and it’s just something I would rather not watch.
The Antagonist is a force of nature - whether it’s zombies, a hurricane, or a volcano if the main problem has no agency then it’s a story without a purpose whose scenery gets in the way when the writers run out of dialogue.
In general I just watch a lot less TV and movies now so my standards have risen.
I used to actually enjoy a little blood and gore in a movie. I’ve always been able to separate movies from reality, so knowing that no one was actually being hurt let me watch without too great of an emotional response to the subject matter.
But…as films have become more and more realistic, and as topics that were once taboo are now presented front and center, I find it harder and harder to remind myself that ‘it’s only a movie’.
I still love a good scary movie, but have basically given up on the blood and gore type of horror movie.
I am much less capable of handling violence and sadism in movies these days, yes - I can do it if it’s really, really good but generally, no.
I never LIKED movies where the dog dies but now actively avoid it.
I suspect it isn’t uncommon, but now that I have a child I find I am much less able to deal with movies where children, especially toddlers and babies, are put in peril. I avoid them now. (Under the Skin outright damaged my husband and me.)
Same here… Since I’ve had my sons, I get more emotionally involved when kids are in danger, or even when they are separated from the parents, the parent dies, etc.
Yeah, much like Sitnam, I’m fine with all kinds of horror, but anything showing torture is a definitive no-no. I don’t think I’ll ever watch Green Inferno or most of anything Eli Roth does.
I have grown out of the target audience for most “comedies” released nowadays. They just seem stupid, stupid people doing pointless stupid things. I can still watch almost any classic comedy (classic being defined as earlier than about 1983).
Don’t skip it for that reason. Don’t watch it because it absolutely sucks. And I say this as someone who is a horror movie freak that pretty much will watch anything that comes down the pipeline.
I have two. One are those “uncomfortable” films where the leads act like they have Aspergers or something and everything that happens to them is completely cringe-worthy. Think Wes Anderson. I used to sit through them for the sake of it being a critical darling, but now I just have no desire to be embarrassed on a character’s behalf for two hours.
Two is gratuitous sex talk in movies. Not stupid or funny sexy times stuff, because I can see it for what it is and roll my eyes if necessary. But it’s the every other line being an innuendo that annoys me to no end. For example, I’ve started watching Wynona Earp (don’t judge!) and although I like it for the low-hanging fruit of being quasi-horror like, her constantly cracking wise about her prowess is a real drag. It just really shows a lack of good writing and such a sophomoric bent that I hate. Ugh.
I’ve never had any real objections to gore or horror movies but as I’ve gotten older I find myself less and less interested. First to go was the extreme-gore type movies, the Saw series is a common example. Over the last 3-5 years even horror movies have mostly moved out of my area of interest. Unless it is a zombie movie/show and then I’m all in with a bag of popcorn and a 180oz cup of Coca-Cola!
Since having our first child a little over a year ago I also find myself having zero interest in movies, t.v. shows, books, or even advertisements that have anything to do with illness, injury, violent crime, etc. against children. I just cannot stomach it as it seems I’ve become hypersensitive to anything bad happening to children. Won’t someone think of the children? I do. In my head. All. The. Time.
It’s stinking lousy lazy writing. How easy is it to show blood, gore, evisceration? Anyone with a tub of chicken guts and a gallon of fake blood… How VERY difficult is it to think up something GENUINELY haunting, frightening, mysterious, scary? just about impossible now… It’s why I stopped reading Stephen King ages ago. There is scary, and there is gross. Mysterious sounds in the basement! Eh, show some vomit and cut off someone’s hand, so so much easier.
THERE IS NO CORRELATION BETWEEN THE TWO. One is shuddery fun, one is as appealing as watching a dog crap .
This is a common rant from me for the last couple of years. There’s a bunch of things which are advertised as ‘comedy’ and they are just are not. No attempts to be funny.
The D Train(Bad Bromance), The Night Before, The Duff, Get Hard, Our Brand is Crisis, Sex Tape. Life after Beth, The voices ???.
Notice I even skipped the Sandler there…
These are even just recent examples, it’s not been plentiful in recent years. I’ve liked Vacation in recent times, Wedding Ringer made me laugh, but it’s getting to the point that if it has made you smile twice at least you can call it a comedy, substandard sequels such as Ted 2 and Anchorman 2 are at least bearable for a couple of jokes. Man, A million ways to die in the west is probably the funniest movie of the last couple of years, cos at least it had a funny half an hour to it…
So sad. Favourite genre. Vacation was good. I was probably not expecting much from Wedding Ringer which made me think better than it was. I was also drinking…
I used to love movies like Godzilla, Gamera, etc. (Etcetera–now that’s a monster name!) Destroy All Monsters was my favorite. It had all of them–sort of like the Avengers. Now I’m not interested in either the old ones or the remakes.
I can no longer stand gratuitous violence, violence for violence’s sake. Like when a violent scene goes overboard with the overkill. I couldn’t watch those scenes in Daredevil or Jessica Jones, for example, because IMO the writers just went to town. I GET IT. JUST STOP, OK?
Killing somebody as part of the story? That’s fine. Yeah, I expect blood. What I can no longer stomach is prolonged killing/bloodshed.
Somebody upthread mentioned what now passes as comedy. That too. I have more laughs watching the latest Pixar/Dreamworks film than I do watching an “adult” comedy film.
Two things: I am so tired of Vampire and sundry Monster movies. Just can’t be bothered with them anymore.
Also, Superhero movies, in particular but not limited to all the Batmans.
I’m mostly done with sports movies in general, and especially boxing movies. I’ve generally had enough gangster movies, too. It just seems hard to find much in the way of a new story to tell.
I’m 58. Romantic comedies really don’t do it for me the way they did when I was 25. To say the least.
Nothing to do with 9/11 really, but i’ve gone in the opposite direction with the depiction of cops in TV shows and the movies.
I don’t like it when shows constantly portray police as the good guys, even when they’re using brutality or violating people’s rights. It’s one thing to show police malfeasance; it’s another to suggest, through the dialog or the general structure of the plot, that the malfeasance is an acceptable and even necessary part of doing the job.
One of my favorite shows of all time was NYPD Blue. When it began in the early 1990s, it was groundbreaking stuff, especially for a show on mainstream network TV. But the show frequently has the main characters—all of whom we are supposed to support and sympathize with—beating suspects in order to obtain confessions, or to get information out of them. The general position adopted by the stories, and sometimes explicitly laid out in the dialog, is that this sort of behavior is OK as long as you really know that the person whose rights you’re violating is actually guilty.
Law and Order did the same sort of thing, although overt violence was less common that it was on NYPD Blue. On Law and Order, the more common tactic was barging into a person’s house or apartment without probable cause, and without a warrant. Sometimes the results of illegal searches were excluded by the trial judge, especially if the exclusion advanced the plot, but in many cases it’s clear that the audience is supposed to agree that the rights violation is OK because the person is clearly guilty.
It was easier for me to see this as “just part of the show” when i was younger, and especially when i was not as well-informed about the long history of police corruption and malfeasance in the United States, but as time went on i became increasingly annoyed at the hand-job given to cops on most TV shows. I prefer the approach of shows like The Wire, which show that cops do dangerous and necessary work, but also show the problems and imperfections in a way that encourages critical thinking about the role of police. I thought that Southland was excellent also.
I’m not sure if my tastes have changed, but I am more stubborn about what I refuse to see, having been burned too often. I separate movies into three categories:
[ol]
[li]Definitely want to see[/li][li]Maybe will see[/li][li]Definitely do not want to see[/li][/ol]Sometimes any in the first two categories will surprise me (at how bad or how good they turn out to be) but those in the third category never do. My instincts have always been correct.
So now I double-down, and despite the possible critical praise and audience approval, forget giving it a chance or persistent recommendation from friends, if I don’t want to see it I stay away.