Horror - what's the point?

Was looking up Wikipedia, was intrigued at a section of films on their banned list (the old "video nasties"). What seems clear is that most of these films were banned for being sadistically savage and cruel, rather than just because they were horrors.

For me, a real horror doesn't come from gory effects or what new way the film makers have come up with to kill someone off. That is all gore effects and whilst they may revolt, and the idea of it happening be horrific, they are in my opinion lazy horrors.

True horrors, in my opinion, are when you care about the characters. You like them and want them to survive, so when they are put in real peril, you are scared for them. nothing to do with gruesome demises and editing tricks, but good old fashion terror that one feels at the prospect of losing a loved on. it is true psychological horror and I fear we are losing the art form in an attempt to shock the audience with ever more gruesome and sadistic scenes of torture.

Take Hallowwen, for example. There is a film with little blood to it and yet it is genuinely scary. in part its due to the skill of Carpenter's direction but its also because we get to meet these characters, and like them. When they are put in jeopardy, we want them to survive and so we fear their demise. Once that has been established, gore is really not needed.

I also find it sikcening that we have a generation of horror films where the audience are no longer going to see characters they like trying to escape from the killer, supernatural or otherwise. Instead they go to cheer on freddy, jason, Michael and jigsaw as they dispatch another group of faceless, pointless victims for our amusement.

It worries me greatly.

Definitely in a self-loathing kinda mood!

Just spoken to my daughter. I just feel that I ahve lost her. We talk and there appears to be a connection but I'm not sure. maybe I'm so afriad of losing her I'm putting up barriers but it hurts, it hurts so very, very much.

I know I should kick myself and get over it and all that nuttiness but right now I just feel like really taking a razor and going nuts with my veins. Times like this I feel like dying.

Proposition 8 - what a sad day!

And so the California Supreme Court ruling is in and its a mess. On one hand they uphold Prop 8 but they try and appease those they must know they have let down terribly and wrongly by allowing those gay couples who had married prior to the ban to remain married.

Whilst I am happy for those couples, it is sickening that hate and discrimination has won the day in California. Proposition 8 was voted for due in large part to a campaign that used lies, distortions, innaccuracies and exaggerations to try and scare the hell out of the voters. It sadly worked. the judges should have seen through the lies and stayed strong. They didn't.

It is a sad day for justice, common sense and humanity.