The rationale behind making such movies...

The basics of whatever we study during our two year course for Diploma in Management are simple and restrictive in nature. What becomes diversified and perhaps complicated is the implementation of these basics in vast gamut of situations. It’s essential to understand the basics so that one can first identify what to apply and then tweak the basics so as to answer the issue. One of such basics that remain in market is the demand and supply gap. Let me not go into the details of this concept as I guess the concept is simple enough to be self-explanatory.

So, what’s the rationale behind producing movies that depict extreme on-screen torture scenes by humans? Is it just the demand for such movies? Or just the fact that money can be made by making such movies? Or just that there is an audience which may not over-enthusiastically demand such movies but still like to watch one? By the way, just to let the readers know, there are people who love movies of such genre (which goes beyond the normal horror genre) and look forward to them.

Let me try and answer each of the above asked questions and more. By what I understand, there hardly are movies of this genre which are made to provide the world with the great artistic experience. Not to deny that there are none, but they are very few. Most of the movies which depict sex and violence in a very cruel way thrive upon making some quick bucks. The overall production cost of such movies isn’t huge and the sales of these movies (including theatrical, DVD and TV release) easily give the parties involved enough cash to be happy about. Just to give an example on how much is earned making such movies, let me take the example of Hostel II. This movie is a sequel to Hostel. It’s user rating on http://www.imdb.com/ is 5.4 (not that great) and it released in 2007. This movie was made at an estimated cost of $10 million. The cost is much less as compared to industry average. Any ideas how much it would have grossed? It grossed in excess of $61 million. And this is the figure just from 2007. A whopping profit in excess of 500% on scale of $10 million. Now, who won’t be interested to get such a profit? More on the profitability figures of such movies in a separate blog.

Now, what about the demand? Well, one of the requirements of marketers is their knack of understanding the hidden needs of humans. Whenever the first movie of such a kind would have released (I just know of the movies in 1970s and perhaps will have to do more research to know of movies depicting extreme gore of earlier years), I am sure they wouldn’t have done a market research to know that people will like to see such torture happening when there is an option to see happy things or even the sad things that normally happen in life. Kudos to the people who would have understood that there is a market for such stuff. That people would like to see the tortures happening rather than just thinking how it would feel to be inside one of the gas chambers in WW-II (which I personally think might be easier to be in than in some of these movie depictions) is one heck of an achievement. Do I sound adulatory? Perhaps, I am. It’s no mean task to think of something that’s not very evident. But the question still remains. Is the demand, even in this age, so huge as to prompt movie-makers to go for such movies? Perhaps, there is. Otherwise how are the profitability figures justified? People like being afraid, perhaps even to this level. But I guess that the profitability is a bigger driver factor than the altruistic motive of these movie producers to cater to the latent or active (which is extremely small in number) demands.

Of course, not every movie of such genre is made purely for money. Though, money is definitely the factor in perhaps 9999 out of the 10000 movies made. The motivation behind making an art-piece are many. While going through the page in imdb for a movie called “I spit on your grave”, I came across the motivation for the director to make this movie. The director was inspired to make this film after helping a young woman who had been brutally raped by some assaulters in New York. The girl was bloodied, naked and with her jaw in a state that she could hardly speak. Witnessing such a scene in person can surely be heart-rendering. Nobody deserves such treatment. I, for one, feel my blood boil (not literally) when I hear about such incidents or even when I witness them on celluloid. Movies are a good way to depict the goings-on in the world. And perhaps a pretty effective way to caution people too.

There was a different movie in this category too. One that I have discussed briefly earlier, by the name Irreversible. I don’t know what might have inspired the director for making that movie. And I am not going to try and find out before I complete this blog. But, after watching that movie, I was in a state of shock and at the same time I had a sense of realization that how realistic and brutal an act of rape can be; that how cruel and out-of-mind can a human get over sex and how violent a person can get over the loss of a loved one. Why even loved one, I perhaps might get violent on the perpetrators after witnessing such an incident on a stranger too. And I guess most of you also might. This movie also had a very artistic way of depiction. And for one, I perhaps won’t term this movie in the league of the money-making movies of such genre. I perhaps might not even term it in such a genre. But it certainly falls under the category of movies that I have defined for the purpose of this blog.

Anyways, though such movies are there in existence which have their heart in the right place even when showing such depictions but I, for one, am largely convinced that they are exceptions of exceptions and very rare. Most of this torture and gory genre has much much more to do with money churning rather than being artistic or informative.

I guess this will be all for the purpose of this particular entry. In the next entry, I will write on what is actually depicted in such movies – a topic I have shied away from in all my earlier entries.