Get That Thing, Continued...
H.G. Lewis also made a lot of other gory movies, including The Gore Gore Girls and 2,000 Maniacs! Big-screen dismemberment was a novelty then, but there's certainly nothing new about it these days. Now, almost all the major horror movies (and the minor ones, too) feature blood and guts galore. Saw and its sequels come immediately to mind. In the 2002 release Irreversible, a man in a sex club pounds in another guy's head with a fire extinguisher (I've heard of giving somebody head, but that's ridiculous!). The scene seems to go on forever, and nothing is left to the imagination. It really looks like somebody's noggin is getting bashed into lumpy oatmeal.
The biggest difference between gore flicks then and now is this: those early efforts were infused with a hefty helping of outrageous dark humor. The majority of today's uber-visceral releases are pretty humorless--though there have been noteworthy exceptions. The folks at the Troma production company, makers of the Toxic Avenger movies, have always liked to mix horror with unbridled wackiness. Funny examples from other sources include such ghoulish treats as Reanimator, Shaun of the Dead and the morbidly stylish Death Becomes Her.
When a person watches a gore movie, they are bound to think: Wow, that could be me up there, getting chewed/chopped/burned/hacked/harpooned/mashed with a fire extinguisher. When you really think about it, any one of us could get creamed by something horrible at any given time. That's not exactly a comforting thought. In fact, it's a pretty hard pill to swallow. Humor can be the spoonful of honey that helps the ghastly pill glide down just a weensy bit easier.
Aren't we all supposed to laugh in the face of danger? We sure are! That's the sort of thing heroes do. Nothing phases them! So to laugh at the sight of ultimate danger--i.e., somebody getting chopped up by a raging psycho--why, that's a pretty darned heroic action!
Of course, we probably wouldn't be laughing in a real-life scenario, with the aforementioned psycho standing just a few inches away, preparing to bring down the machete with ruthless force. But, should that ever happen... well, we'll just have to cross that bridge when we come to it, won't we?
Personally, if that should ever happen to me, I hope I follow the courageous example of the very heartiest of horror-movie heroes. You know the ones I mean. They're the ones the movie-preview-guy-voice is talking about when he says, "When an average Joe is pushed to the limits by a machete-wielding maniac ... that's when he matters into his own hands!" They're the ones who grab their own pitchfork, blow-torch--whatever's handy--and proceed to make minced-meat out of the would-be mincer.
You've got to admit, everybody loves that character! Especially when that character is a person who might be perceived as physically vulnerable. Like a petite young lady or a lad in his early teens. Or a three-legged kitten! Okay, I've never seen a movie where a three-legged kitten had to fight off a psycho-killer... but if somebody should ever make a movie like that, you can bet audiences everywhere would be cheering for that spunky kitten! (Hollywood, are you listening?)
As for you, gentle reader: If you are ever cornered by a blood-thirsty killer, I hope you have what it takes to go berserk, turn the tables on your attacker, and rip out his or her guts with one of those claw-thingy handtools people use to weed their gardens.
But please, don't take to carrying one of those crazy things around. I mean, it's good to be prepared, but let's not get carried away.
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