# I'm afraid to watch "Kill Bill" **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [June 18, 2004, 9:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-afraid-to-watch-kill-bill/251117 "2004-06-18T21:33:05Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2004, 12:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-afraid-to-watch-kill-bill/251117/21 "2004-06-20T12:00:03Z")
> [@Arch Trout](#): > > What people? > “An insult to all that is good and decent.” > If anyone said that to me about a _movie_ ,and meant it, I don’t think I’d ever speak to them again. > > The Puritans never left America did they? > > Just watch the movie and stop being such a crybaby. > > **It’s NOT real** Offhand, two movies that are insults to all that is good and decent: Funny Games Everybody Loves Sunshine ---
**Author:** ![SolGrundy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bbce88/32.png) [@SolGrundy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SolGrundy)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2004, 8:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-afraid-to-watch-kill-bill/251117/22 "2004-06-20T20:20:50Z")
> [@Alan Smithee](#): > > I have to respectfully disagree with the other posters. _Pulp Fiction_ and _Reservoir Dogs_ are two of my favorite movies. (I laugh whenever I think of the “Stuck in the Middle with You” scene.) _The Passion of the Christ_ barely fazed me, though I hated the movie for other reasons. _Clockwork Orange_ bothered me mostly because I happened to be visiting my parents when I saw it, and kept waiting for my mother to walk in during the rape scene. > […] > I found what I saw of this movie to be disgusting and offensive. I’m no Puritan by any stretch of the imagination (the falsity of such stereotypes not withstanding). I do, however, take art seriously. I believe anyone who has lost the ability to be offended by movies to have lost the ability truely to be moved by them. > > Ordinarily, I don’t mind being offended, but what I saw of this movie was both offensive and disturbing, and lacked redeeming qualities. I honestly wish I had not seen what I saw of it. I don’t think I could say that about any other movie (other than for reasons of boredom/inanity), with the exception of a couple of hard-core pornos. I find the comparison most informative. I have to say I’m completely baffled by this. I found all the scenes you mention, especially the one in _Reservoir Dogs_, to be completely reprehensible, because they’re nothing more than glorified sadism. The “difficult” scenes in _Kill Bill_ are supposed to be disturbing, but only so much as to set up what kind of story this is. The beginning and the hospital scene present the story as a tale of revenge, to say that by the laws of whatever universe these characters live in, the Bride’s actions are justified. The opening is done as a spaghetti western, and the hospital is done as a 70’s exploitation movie, to reinforce the idea that it’s style that matters here; in other words, to reminds you that this is a movie. And the fight between The Bride and Viveca A. Fox’s character is to establish the code of “honor” that these characters live by. O-ren Ishii’s back-story is also very violent and would be disturbing if not for the fact that it’s made clear – by virtue of its being animated, and by its placement in the story – that it’s just to describe these characters’ motivations, and not for the audience to revel in the violence or to take any of these characters’ stories to heart. The rape scene in _A Clockwork Orange_ is supposed to be disturbing. The soundtrack is added not just for irony on Kubrick’s part, but to show just how callous to violence the main character has become. There’s no joke there. I hate _Reservoir Dogs_, and am frankly troubled by anyone who says they “laughed” at it, because it was missing all of that. These characters have been established throughout the movie as being _cool_, and the torture scene doesn’t indicate that it’s only Michael Madsen’s character who’s enjoying being sadistic, but that the filmmaker and by extension the audience themselves think that it’s cool. ---
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2004, 9:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-afraid-to-watch-kill-bill/251117/23 "2004-06-20T21:45:49Z")
> [@FisherQueen](#): > > So my DVD of “Kill Bill, Part 1” arrived from Netflix today. > > But I’m scared to watch it. I loved “Pulp Fiction,” which is the only other Tarantino movie I’ve seen. But so many people have told me that “Kill Bill” is a terrible bloodbath, an insult to all that is good and decent in the world, that I’m afraid that I’ll be traumatized for life by it. > > I haven’t avoided a movie like this since “A Clockwork Orange,” whose reputation meant that it took me a month to summon the nerve to watch it (and which ended up being not that traumatizing, but not nearly as good as the book). > > I need someone to convince me to watch it- or convince me to send it back unwatched. I’m not sure which. OK. I never \*watched a movie of this kind (with fights from the beginning to the end, rivers of blood, etc…) . Actually not even a karate movie. I just didn’t have any interest in this kind of movie and expected it to be just plain boring to me. I don’t particularily like violence, either. However, a friend of mine insisted to go and watch him. I agreed, because he was somewhat depressed and all that. I thought it would be an ordeal to go through an hour and half of people killing each other in various gory way. And I was wrong. I was pleasantly surprised. The “gore/violence” is so caricatural that you (or at least I) can’t take it seriously when they chop off arms with blood splashing everywhere, or such things, so it wasn’t disturbing at all for me. On the other hand, I appreciated a lot the way it was filmed, cut in chapters, with various technics used (for instance, anime, black and white, scenes filmed in particular colors, etc…), the “choregraphy” of the fights, the aesthetics of some scenes (like the final fight in a japanese garden under the snow). So, though I wouldn’t rank it as a great movie, I was pleasantly surprised. And I found “resevoir dogs” for instance, much more disturbing, since though there’s much less actual violence, it’s filmed “seriously”, while Kill Bill is just a parody that you don’t take at the first degree. “Clockword Orange” too is way more disturbing for the same reason (a story meant to be taken seriously). ---
**Author:** ![FisherQueen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/58f4c7/32.png) [@FisherQueen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FisherQueen)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2004, 3:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-afraid-to-watch-kill-bill/251117/24 "2004-06-22T15:38:43Z")
I don’t know why I even bother listening to other people’s opinions about movies. That wasn’t hardly anything disturbing. It was fun to look at, and had cool dialogue (what there was of it), and I’ve certainly been a lot more squicked. Sure, it was a little bloody, but not anywhere near the way people were describing it to me. I must have some deeply sensitive acquaintances. The only really messy scenes were in cartoon and black and white, even. I enjoyed it a lot. The only thing I found even a little bit disturbing was the nagging question of what, exactly, is left of Sofie . Now, don’t tell me what happens next until I get a chance to see the second part. ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_One](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/45deac/32.png) [@Evil\_One](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_One)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2004, 6:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-afraid-to-watch-kill-bill/251117/25 "2004-06-23T18:38:48Z")
Could a final climactic battle with Bill be in the offing? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-afraid-to-watch-kill-bill/251117.md?page=1)