Yes

by Nia Edwards-Behi

Created on: June 11, 2009

Ever since blood was first shown in a film - in however brief a scene - gore has been a topic of debate. How much should be used? When? In my view, there is no reason for gore not to be used in movies. I certainly believe it should be used selectively and judiciously in the majority of films, but I also believe there is room for gorier fare. It boils down to one thing for me - if you don't like gore, don't watch it. It's normally pretty clear from a film's marketing or age rating or reviews if it's going to be gory. Why deny those who enjoy this kind of filmmaking for the sake of another group of people's sensibilities?

Horror is genre that, naturally, makes much use of gore. It is a genre that has consistently provided a safe portal to the darker side of life - in the classic monsters, in masked killers, in violence. Some of the best horror films are the most subtle - take The Haunting (Wise, 1963) as an example. Almost all the scares contained within the film rely on the use of sounds to frighten the viewer. Those sounds represent something else, something hidden, and the same is true of gore. Who isn't afraid of non-consensual bodily mutilation? If a film wants to scare the viewer, then gore is a great way to do it.

Of course, horror is a particularly physical genre. It's not the only one to use gore. Action movies, thrillers, even prestigious dramas use gore at times. To assume that gore is only ever used in an over-the-top, gross-out way is to ignore a massive corpus of films. What would No Country For Old Men (Coen Bros., 2008) or There Will Be Blood (Anderson, 2008) be without their depiction - gore and all - of violence?

I certainly don't for one minute subscribe to the views that say that just because a film is gory or violent, the viewer becomes violent in turn. I think such views are, frankly, offensive to those of us fans of genre pictures or gore cinema - who are perfectly normal, just like everyone else. Just because I enjoy a film like Kataude mashin gru (Iguchi, 2008), doesn't mean I'm deviant, or that I'm going to commit violence in my day to day life. Almost all the gore fans I know are intelligent, fun and interesting people. To tar the names of every gore fan with the tragic choices of a few disturbed individuals is both sad and reductive.

Of course, I cannot write here and deny that there aren't films that do cross the line when it comes to gore. However, in my opinion, it is not the simple use of gore that makes them unacceptable, but the context in which it is used. If a filmmaker is cynical in his/her attitude toward the use of gore, then the use of gore will always seem gratuitous - take the recent remakes of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (Nispel, 2003) or Friday the 13th (Nispel, 2009) as examples of that. I don't think a film being more or less gory is ever necessarily an indication of quality.

As I've said, it's all down to choice. Every film viewer has different tastes and so choose their films accordingly. I don't like romantic comedies, so I don't watch them. That doesn't mean I tell my friends who do enjoy them that they shouldn't be watching them. If you don't like gory movies, don't watch them, and let those of us who do enjoy them get on with it.

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