'Bereavement': The Needed Role of Excessive Violence and Gore in the Horror Industry

On March 4, 2011, we will see the theatrical release of "Bereavement." Horror movie fans are being told that it includes "sadistic bloody violence," and that moviegoers should be warned that it is one of the most disturbing movies of all time.

If I had been alive in 1941, I am sure that this article would have mentioned "The Wolf Man" in the opening paragraph instead of "Bereavement." If this were 1960, I would probably be writing this article in response to "Psycho." If this were 1979, I might be writing this article to coincide with the release of "Dawn of the Dead." 2004 would have seen me writing an article like this due to the buzz over "Saw." Notice that there is a pattern of movies here that gradually get more excessive in violence and gore. Why is that?

Excessive violence and gore have a place in horror movies because they have a place in other aspects of our lives, thanks in part to traditional news media. During WWII and in the years that followed, people began to see images unlike any they had ever seen before. They saw images of people dying of starvation in concentration camps, and the images of wounded soldiers. They began to become desensitized to this.

TV brought even more images into people's homes over the years for them to become desensitized to. Vietnam, the first Gulf War, the Oklahoma City bombing, and 9/11 are events that kept people glued to their TV as they watched the excessive violence and gore increase. We fed on this because it was news and it was real. All the horror movie industry has done was change with the times and to keep up with reality.

As the excessive violence and gore increased on our nightly news, so did it in the horror movie industry. The horror movie industry had to keep up. People are not going to be scared by the amount of violence and gore in "Bereavement" if Anderson Cooper can show them something even worse. Why spend $9 to see a movie that is on a lower level of violence and gore than CNN?

While excessive violence and gore can be used to promote a movie like "Bereavement," it is not necessarily there just to shock you, or to turn your stomach. It is there to draw you away from your living room since it offers more anguish than what you are going to find on your nightly TV shows. It is there to make you put down the PS3 controller, and pay money to see something that you might not have seen before.

The excessive violence and gore in "Bereavement" is there to distract you from the excessive violence and gore that you are going to come in contact with by watching what is going on in the world right now. You have the choice. You can either pay the $9 and see "Bereavement" in the theaters, or you can turn on CNN or FOX to see the same types of images going on during the coverage of the turmoil in the Middle East. If you have an issue with excessive violence and gore in horror movies, take it up with the news networks, not with Hollywood.