Why are horror movie victims always immoral assholes? Like, whenever some junkie dickhead or whore gets murdered by the antagonist you're not as much scared as you are glad they're dead, but I feel like if Johnny "spends his free time at the children hospital" were to get ripped apart by some horrifying monster you'd think "wow that really sucks I liked that guy" and it would just make you feel shitty. It seems like a lot of horror movies are caught up with trying to push a moral as opposed to just being a horrifying experience.
Why are horror movie victims always immoral assholes? Like...
Anthony Thomas
Other urls found in this thread:
John Barnes
Final girls exist so the unsympathetic can build tension getting nuked like fodder. It’s attachment through comparison.
James Gomez
But that's the point of the final girls, they rarely ever die, and if they do it's in some dumb "haha you thought you'd live way".
All I'm saying is if it was 93 minutes of decent genuinely kind people being brutally murdered it would be a much more upsetting experience.
Thomas Cruz
Yeah. That why they don’t do it. They are selling movies to make out watching, but deep grueling psychological experiences. Those don’t sell. Give’em a boner, give’em a scare, send’em on their way.
Jaxson Hernandez
I agree 100% user! Jurrassic park is full with this trope
Jayden Morgan
The fact you picked Hellraiser for this discussion tells me you’ve never seen it. A guy spending his free time at child’s Hospital isn’t going to opening the lament configuration
Nicholas Richardson
>it would just make you feel shitty.
Sort of answered your own question there.
Hudson Bennett
I've seen hell raiser. I'm aware it's not a perfect example but I didn't have a proper pic related.
Noah Thomas
This. Hellraiser’s entire theme is centered around those that seek debauchery and are never satiated. That’s not the best example OP.
Adrian Campbell
It's based off of cautionary tales. To use your Johnny character, for instance, would detach people from the threat of the boogeyman/monster/killer/being, and instead be used to drive a perverse or "shocking" aspect. To prevent that particular section of the story from baselessness (i.e A Serbian Film or other films written for the attempt to "disgust"), there would either have to be development on some level of the villainous character, or the Johnny character. This is up to whoever creates the story in its entirety, but generally the development of the former is frowned upon due to the risk of the unknown being sacrified in pursuit of the known. The latter, however, has no bearing on what would give the audience a sense of horror, either way; since a horror story would have to revolve around the familiar and unfamiliar, a character who would spend his time in a children's hospital is an unlikely person in the general population, whose death would be a bizarre spectacle to the audience, rather than a spectacle that incites interest or fear. However, since cruel or imposing characters can properly reflect the populace as a whole, it can not only give an audience a proper satisfaction from the plot, but a commentary on whatever subject it reflects upon. Therefore, the basis of protagonists commonly revolve around what represents the normal habits of the viewer, and/or a character who, despite retaining normal traits, practices vice or wrongdoing.
(my autism is unapologetic)
Mason Bell
Well it would be because
>Why do bad things happen to good people
It is to close to real life. Horror films mostly slasher films have to give you a reason as to why these people get killed. The reason is easier to digest if it someone you care very little about.
Granted some of the reasons as to why are retarded.
>Teen's who have sex
>Guy who is 1D asshole to a character for no known reason.
>The "joker" of the group just after he pranks the lead and someone else with a fake out.
These excuses have been used to make sure you don't give a fuck about these guy getting stabbed and slashed up.
Cooper Foster
I like it when it uses that as a way to frame the hero for the slasher's crimes, the Chucky and Freddy movies do this a lot.
Ian Green
Posting Hellraiser kind of contradicts your point.
Robert Edwards
read Lone Wolf and Cub or Azumi if you want horror where good people are slaughtered all the time.
Lone Wolf is especially hard, you find yourself begging for someone to please kill him even though he's the "protagonist".
Samuel Walker
Not the OP and the two of you have shitty reading comprehension, moral imagination, and presumptive knowledge of horror film tropes.
-The OP complained about horror movie victims who are shitty, immoral people.
-You each responded that the OP's choice of illustration, "Hellraiser", is a poor one, clearly implying that the film's victims are instead good people. You then each alternately cite the absurdity of "the innocent victim" and (secondly, in agreement), the shitty immoral people in Hellraiser (a self-defeating comment in its context, I wonder what if anything went through the author's head while it was being written).
To be clear, in the classic "get killed" sense, Hellraiser's primary victims are Frank, Julia, and the cuckolded brother-husband (Larry?). But Frank and Julia consciously brought their doom on themselves, are assholes/primary villains.
To actually answer the OP's question: the purpose of immoral asshole victims is (partially) to titillate the viewer, enjoying a fictional sadistic entertainment. Comeuppance. One form of enjoyment. You instead suggest the more horrifying spectacle of brutality against the innocent victim. Ironically, this suggestion implicates you for an even harsher sadism than that already enjoyed in the first case, by the ancestral recipients of victorian sexual morality, passed through the grate of the sexual revolution: 1980s horror movies of all sub-genres, with asshole victims (and even victims who merely Have Sex, which is sinful in and of itself).
The "first" responder's comment demonstrates a lack of awareness, to the point that it's a possible troll. A guy who spends his time in a hospital with at least one child (Channard) almost-literally opens the Lament Configuration (intent), albeit merely using the child's hands as proxy (sensed by Pinhead).
OTOH Kirsty and the blonde girl are proxy-"innocent" victims, putting the lie to some above...
Lucas Richardson
Because it's fun to think about ripping people you despise apart & horror movies are a way to get that itch scratched.
Easton Bennett
Continuing the above rambling, there is a tension between at least two types of victims in horror films, and the types of pleasure that the viewer might take in seeing the distress of either one. This goes to the heart of the OP's problem.
Asshole-victim: the viewer may enjoy a "righteous sadism" at the asshole's death/distress/torture. This is Comeuppance, Karma, cosmic justice. The viewer is given historical cultural license for this, because wickedness is being punished (in a grandiose way). The documentary crew of Cannibal Holocaust are probably the exemplar of the "asshole victims".
Innocent-victim (Final Girl): very distressed throughout, but ultimately surviving (because she deserves to). Her mere survival in the film corresponds to Christian salvation.
Innocent-victim, actually killed (Salo, those dudes in Hostel I presume, haven't actually seen that one, children in Frank Darabont-associated films): this is the most depraved, transgressive, and therefore the most interesting one. This is the stuff that the Hays code would not tolerate (which was made irrelevant, ironically, right around the time of the sexual revolution mentioned above, though resonances of these moralities passing through the sexual revolution gave rise to the tensions typical of the 1980s slasher film and horror more broadly (Hellraiser as an elevated example).)
Something I respect Frank Darabont for: whether as writer, producer or director, he has regularly killed kids off in his associated projects, one of the final taboos. That kid in the Blob, again in the Mist...
Luis Hernandez
A third dumb post. What is going on? Are you all thinking of Kirsty or something?
Angel Garcia
I love it when innocents get rekt in horror movies. Like someone so sweet and likeable they clearly don't deserve it. Even good people go to hell type shit. Or even someone who's just a regular person.
It makes the gut wrenching despair worse when you see an innocent get fucked over hardcore.
Nicholas Peterson
>the babysitter in jurassic world
Fuck that was awful to watch. So watch it again.
Asher Hall
Are you a moron? You just proved my point. Tiffany was a retard manipulated to open the box and that’s why she wasn’t tortured by the Cenobites.
The whole premise of Hellraiser is hedonistic debauchery. They are the people that seek the Lamont configuration.
Chase Myers
Marie is my wife
Ryder Peterson
Marie belongs to Honkers.