What’s life without purpose? What’s journey without motive? And what’s a movie without story? The answer is “a boring waste of time”. So, let’s have a look at what kind of scripts do the torture genre movies apply. I should have written about this quiet earlier but perhaps it kept on slipping my mind somehow.
It’s said about bollywood cinema that they follow a set pattern which is known as formula. Another phenomenon about Bollywood cinema is that once a movie becomes a hit, then there are strings of movies that release on similar formula. A similar concept can be applied for the various genres of movies too. Every movie in romantic, action, horror, thriller or drama genre can be categorized in fixed set of underlying ideas. So, let’s see what these sets of ideas for the torture genre are:
· Revenge saga: The oft repeated and the widely used formula. Something very very horrible thing (like rape, rape of girlfriend/family member) occurs with the protagonist and then he or she takes the revenge in the worst possible way.
· I’ve a physical defect; let me take it out on you: A place is deserted because of some nuclear testing in the area or some toxic chemical plant in that area. There are inhabitants left behind with pretty less to eat. And now, they have grown into cannibals eating humans who have unknowingly come in that area. Though, you see, the killing of humans has to be in style. They can’t be killed with poison or bullet or a knife. No no, they have to be killed in some gross way so that the killed humans have almost become inside out.
· The psycho kills all: Well, this one doesn’t even need a reason. The guy is simply a psycho and loves to indulge in some harmless simple fun like capturing a guy or a girl and then experimenting over it to know what all ways are there to kill a person in the most gruesome way.
· We need to do an experiment: Haven’t found many movies on this. Have read about one, named Salo. It is one gross movie even to read through. And deals with some sort of storyline with Nazis conducting experiment on children related to sex and violence. It has some pretty graphic scenes and some very unthinkable sort of stuff.
· The realistic ones: No storyline. No screenplay is the motive here. And the one that falls in this category is Cannibal holocaust and its remake coming in 2009. The protagonists are a group of people who venture into woods to make documentary and come upon a tribe of cannibals who get afraid on seeing them. These so-called urban people rape their women making the viewers wonder who is more uncivilized. And well, the documentary goes on with the climax of the protagonists getting killed by the tribe and various other scenes depicting very gory actions.
· The intellectual ones: The new breed of Hollywood cinema has seen a very unique trend of movies going deeply intellectual. The most effected cinema of this wave are the ones which perhaps didn’t have an intellectual leg to it namely the superhero movies and even the latest Bond movie. This intellectual cinema crept in torture genre too with the making of the movie Saw. It was further followed by three sequels. What’s the intellect of this movie? Well, seems that a dying person (who can’t possible save his life) intends to make people understand the meaning of survival and of the term “survival of the fittest”; he wants people to appreciate their lives. And, how does he make them understand about that? Well, read it at http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0387564/plotsummary . Now, who said that not everything can be justified? :)
Well, that’s that about the various storylines that the torture genre uses. Whatever may be the storyline, the movies of this genre mostly focus on the torture and gore part. That’s what gets the audience coming, not the storyline. Anyways, this is the penultimate entry in this thread of blogs. In the next one, I will conclude with my few paisa thoughts over whether this kind of cinema helps the society in any way or not. If you have any thoughts over it, do drop it in the comments.
It’s said about bollywood cinema that they follow a set pattern which is known as formula. Another phenomenon about Bollywood cinema is that once a movie becomes a hit, then there are strings of movies that release on similar formula. A similar concept can be applied for the various genres of movies too. Every movie in romantic, action, horror, thriller or drama genre can be categorized in fixed set of underlying ideas. So, let’s see what these sets of ideas for the torture genre are:
· Revenge saga: The oft repeated and the widely used formula. Something very very horrible thing (like rape, rape of girlfriend/family member) occurs with the protagonist and then he or she takes the revenge in the worst possible way.
· I’ve a physical defect; let me take it out on you: A place is deserted because of some nuclear testing in the area or some toxic chemical plant in that area. There are inhabitants left behind with pretty less to eat. And now, they have grown into cannibals eating humans who have unknowingly come in that area. Though, you see, the killing of humans has to be in style. They can’t be killed with poison or bullet or a knife. No no, they have to be killed in some gross way so that the killed humans have almost become inside out.
· The psycho kills all: Well, this one doesn’t even need a reason. The guy is simply a psycho and loves to indulge in some harmless simple fun like capturing a guy or a girl and then experimenting over it to know what all ways are there to kill a person in the most gruesome way.
· We need to do an experiment: Haven’t found many movies on this. Have read about one, named Salo. It is one gross movie even to read through. And deals with some sort of storyline with Nazis conducting experiment on children related to sex and violence. It has some pretty graphic scenes and some very unthinkable sort of stuff.
· The realistic ones: No storyline. No screenplay is the motive here. And the one that falls in this category is Cannibal holocaust and its remake coming in 2009. The protagonists are a group of people who venture into woods to make documentary and come upon a tribe of cannibals who get afraid on seeing them. These so-called urban people rape their women making the viewers wonder who is more uncivilized. And well, the documentary goes on with the climax of the protagonists getting killed by the tribe and various other scenes depicting very gory actions.
· The intellectual ones: The new breed of Hollywood cinema has seen a very unique trend of movies going deeply intellectual. The most effected cinema of this wave are the ones which perhaps didn’t have an intellectual leg to it namely the superhero movies and even the latest Bond movie. This intellectual cinema crept in torture genre too with the making of the movie Saw. It was further followed by three sequels. What’s the intellect of this movie? Well, seems that a dying person (who can’t possible save his life) intends to make people understand the meaning of survival and of the term “survival of the fittest”; he wants people to appreciate their lives. And, how does he make them understand about that? Well, read it at http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0387564/plotsummary . Now, who said that not everything can be justified? :)
Well, that’s that about the various storylines that the torture genre uses. Whatever may be the storyline, the movies of this genre mostly focus on the torture and gore part. That’s what gets the audience coming, not the storyline. Anyways, this is the penultimate entry in this thread of blogs. In the next one, I will conclude with my few paisa thoughts over whether this kind of cinema helps the society in any way or not. If you have any thoughts over it, do drop it in the comments.
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