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G is for grisly gruesome gore
Apr. 13th, 2012 11:35 pmBy popular request!
I'm a big fan of monsters, horror movies, and das Unheimliche, so gore is important to me. Spraying arteries and strewn viscera are all well and good, but often not as effective as a well-timed nosebleed or red-toothed smile. A punctured palm will make me cringe more than a severed limb. I generally adore Ridley Scott's Hannibal, but found the shot of Pazzi's spilling bowels pointless. The flash of the blade and the sound of innards hitting stone were more powerful on their own. (YMMV, of course.) On the other hand, the field surgery scene in Black Hawk Down had me writhing in my seat. And occasionally, you don't even need a visual. I'm forever creeped out by a scene in Gabriel Knight II, where you're crawling into a dark cave looking for a werewolf*, and listening to the sound of teeth scraping bones. Much of the game is goofy in execution**, but that scene scared the pants of me when I was in my 20s.
I'm often jealous of the relative ease*** with which visual media can portray creepiness and the uncanny. I'm currently revising a novel that's meant to be dark and unnerving, and lamenting every simile and metaphor and bit of word rep. Gore as the natural result of violence doesn't give me any trouble, but anything meant to unsettle leaves me tearing my hair and weeping.
* Not the best plan anyone ever had, I must say.
** Gabriel's accent, for example. And his mangling of German.
*** I know there's all sorts of hard work going on there that the audience doesn't see. Nothing is easy. Still.
I'm a big fan of monsters, horror movies, and das Unheimliche, so gore is important to me. Spraying arteries and strewn viscera are all well and good, but often not as effective as a well-timed nosebleed or red-toothed smile. A punctured palm will make me cringe more than a severed limb. I generally adore Ridley Scott's Hannibal, but found the shot of Pazzi's spilling bowels pointless. The flash of the blade and the sound of innards hitting stone were more powerful on their own. (YMMV, of course.) On the other hand, the field surgery scene in Black Hawk Down had me writhing in my seat. And occasionally, you don't even need a visual. I'm forever creeped out by a scene in Gabriel Knight II, where you're crawling into a dark cave looking for a werewolf*, and listening to the sound of teeth scraping bones. Much of the game is goofy in execution**, but that scene scared the pants of me when I was in my 20s.
I'm often jealous of the relative ease*** with which visual media can portray creepiness and the uncanny. I'm currently revising a novel that's meant to be dark and unnerving, and lamenting every simile and metaphor and bit of word rep. Gore as the natural result of violence doesn't give me any trouble, but anything meant to unsettle leaves me tearing my hair and weeping.
* Not the best plan anyone ever had, I must say.
** Gabriel's accent, for example. And his mangling of German.
*** I know there's all sorts of hard work going on there that the audience doesn't see. Nothing is easy. Still.
