I think the biggest issue would be the hype itself would make it commercially viable.
Before the internet there was The Faces of Death. I guess some of the more well know scenes were faked but many were not. As a teen I could tell what real death looks like. It’s not frightening, it’s grotesque. The horror for me was not the pain and agony of the impending death, but the ease it happens and attitudes other humans show as it’s happening.
In the early heady days of the internet stumbling on real Jihad execution videos would happen as I researched for my school assignments.
OK, if we extend it beyond the medium of film, it feels to me like a “fear factor” type show with physical challenges could easily exceed most people’s enjoyment of being scared, right? Even within the boundaries of causing no damage and it being artificially induced, fear factor designers have to find the right point on the dial rather than just maxxing the dial out, right?
What about like, haunted houses? Do they max out the dial or is there room on the dial to play with? VR games? regular computer games? How immersive does the experience need to be before we start not being limited by the medium into inducing unpleasant levels of scariness?
I guess the bigger question I’m going after is, as someone who never finds any enjoyment out of being scared, I’m trying to get into the minds of people who genuinely do love being scared and where that line is between “fun scared” and “unpleasant scared” and what kinds of things push you up to and over that line?
I hear this. I also watched Faces of Death as a kid.
You rarely see one person doing it alone. A mob has to be the most synergistic thing ever. What no individual would conceive of, is easily done by a mob - it doesn’t have to be big either, just some “insulation” from yourself.
The ease and attitudes you mention is perfectly described in my mind in Hemingway’s For Whom the Bell Tolls, Chapter 10:
Pilar tells the horrific story of Pablo clearing out their town of Fascists and starting the revolution there. Fascists were put through a gauntlet, beaten to death by the townspeople so that no one actually shot anyone and no one had to take complete responsibility for their deaths. The bodies were tossed over the cliff into the river, dead or not. The drunkenness of the crowd turned them into vicious killers.
That’s just a brief overview, but it’s really haunting when you read it. I’ve never had mob mentality described before so well. It start tentatively with no real plan by normal townspeople, and by the end the mob is vicious killers of people they know well.
Injury of young children is a red line. I can’t recall anyone chasing a toddler with a meat clever. I wouldn’t watch a movie with that content.
Violence is better accepted if there’s no connection to the character. That’s why in the Friday the 13th Films, characters are introduced, have sex, and Jason kills them. There’s no time to get attached.
I’ve only seen mainstream horror films like Friday 13th and Nightmare on Elm Street.
There may be no boundaries for the sick underground snuff stuff.
There aren’t, but curiously watching it get worse doesn’t make you feel more frightened, just feel sick.
I also wouldn’t watch a film with an adult chasing after a kid with a cleaver, real or not. That is nothing I want to contemplate in my free time, though I’d argue seeing real death via lynching or whatever has some value. You learn a dark lesson about human nature you never forget. If you feel sick after watching it, that means you’re human.
Again, there’s nothing about depictions of gratuitous violence that’s scary. It’s disgusting, it’s depraved, but it isn’t scary.
IMO horror is a totally separate thing from gore.
I would say that the McKamey Manor would fit here, as seen in the Hulu documentary “Monster Inside: America’s Most Extreme Haunted House.”
To participate, guests must sign a liability waiver that includes explicit details of how the attendee may be subjected to various forms of physical and psychological torture. In its early years, guests were not permitted to leave the experience without the staff’s permission, but since then safewords have been implemented, granting the guest to leave at any time if they so wish.
McKamey Manor has attracted significant controversy, criticism and media scrutiny. In July 2024, its owner, Russ McKamey, was arrested on charges of attempted second-degree murder, rape, and domestic assault.
During the tour, employees of the Manor may physically assault patrons, waterboard them, force them to eat and drink unknown substances, have them bound and gagged, and engage in other forms of physical and psychological torture. Participants may also be drugged during their experience.
Of course, the extreme nature and controversy around it is what is driving it’s success and
The house operates year round, and there is reportedly a waiting list of over 24,000 people.
Admittedly this thread walks a fine line between “scary in the sense of what you think of when you think of horror movies” and “just fucking disturbing” (like A Serbian Film, Salo, what have you).
I’ve been able to sit through exactly one “horror movie” that’s in the Torture Porn genre: I actually like the first Saw, though I knew after seeing it I would be one-and-done with the franchise. I wouldn’t be able to sit through another one, but not because I’m scared, in the strictest sense, but that seeing people get tortured, even artificially for a movie (I’m sure the actors were fine), is in itself a form of torture to me.
A couple of years ago there was much buzz about this Spanish horror film on Netflix, that supposedly large numbers of people were too terrified to finish. As in, a significant percentage of the audience. Veronica was, to me, a low-rent The Exorcist, only not nearly as scary.