by J.L. McKenzie

Created on: June 20, 2010

Let's face it, without gore, some of the best movies of our generation would be boring. How interested would you be in spending an hour or so of your life on a horror movie where there is a psychotic killer running amok, cheerleaders to be killed, and seeing nothing more than a threatening letter saying, “Sorry I bothered you, but you should die.” We need gore, people, and we need it more than ever.

Where would horror movies be without gratuitous gore? That is what I am slapping down my nine dollars for when the title even remotely suggests a beheading. Some people, like my husband, cannot stand gore in a movie. While he is getting squeamish watching “Shawn of the Dead”, saying things like, “Was that really necessary?”, I am on the edge of my seat thinking that there could have been more blood in the disemboweling scene.

With gore, you get that adrenaline rush, the viscous jolt of realism and lost humanity. You do not expect some movies to be so gory and that is what really thrills us. I have watched a lot of horror in my day and I think that directors these days are getting more and more creative with what they are placing in movies, gore-wise. They do it to shock us, to scare us, and it works. That is why we love, nay, demand gore.

It is a form of escapism, to watch a maniac slash and hack his way through hoards of people. You can sit back, and admit that you have, and say, “I wish I could do that to so-and-so.” Take the movie “Hostel” for example. I did not think it was that great of a movie but the story proves my point: People want gore and are willing to pay for it. Gore is necessary to a plot sometimes and the movie would be pointless without it.

Movies would not be any fun without a little blood, a little spleen or a little severed limb. I literally have a stack of zombie films that proves my love of gore. I love nothing more than seeing the dead rise up and eat the living, with or without fava beans. Let us keep our gore. If you do not like to watch it, then do not. But if you are like me, you love your gore and want to keep it in movies.

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