MovieChat Forums > The ABCs of Death (2013) Discussion > Am I the Only One who...(Spoilers)

Am I the Only One who...(Spoilers)

posted 11 years ago by agentalize
24 replies | jump to latest

Isn't cool with children being raped and animals being hurt? Even in a film that we all know is fictional. I didn't understand what the appeal of depicting things like that are. And ppl actually like the shorts with those things in it. Libido was disgusting and disturbing already, but still watchable until we have to see a little boy lay down to get raped by a grown man and have a shot of the bed rocking. Like wtf? And the guy jackin himself off to the 1000th power has a damn saline drip bag attached to him, he's all nasty and sick. Just disturbing!

And the P is for pressure made me want to vomit. I know there is a real video out of a woman doing that but I don't get what"s wrong with ppl in the world and why a video of that happening would even have a place, who wants to see it, what does it do for them and why portray it in a movie in an almost light hearted way? Animals are innocent and harmless and then to use a BABY animal, a kitten? What's up with that. And what's up with the women who participate in those vids. Atleast in the Y is for Youngbuck videoa the boy got revenge but I almost vomited agan when the black hole sun video looking guy licked the bleachers...like wtf. And rubbing the blook on the kids face? Idk. Those vids to me were fetish disturbia, not horror.

[–] eched 11 years ago

You see, this is what I don't get. Murder of random people, that's fine in fiction. Forcing someone to jack off or else you'll kill them, ya, fine to you in fiction. A women lossing her baby in a miscarriage and then laughing it off is fine to you. But a little cat dieing in fiction, now that's morally wrong! Ya see the lack of logic here?

And Pressure was not light hearted. It was very somber and dark. Not very well done, to jumpy, but still very somber and dark. The point of it was to show how people, good people, can do anything when enough 'pressure' is put on them. Look at all the war crimes that go down and you'll see there is a lot of truth to this.

As for L, that was my fave short. Each scene in it was ment to top the last in darkness, slowly but surely getting worse and worse untill we the viewer feel hopless. Of course it can't really pull this idea off in just 6 min, but it sure did do its best. It's honestly what A Serbina Film should have been.

I liked it because it made a world all of its own and if it was longer I would have felt trapped in said world, which is a thing a lot of horror movies can only dream of.

Clearly these shorts in question did horrify you, so I think you should just call them what they are, good horror.

Flower power is too much for the dragonzord!

[–] foreverambridge 11 years ago

eched, you are missing the point completely.

Lets see if you're any good at spotting the odd one out in the following list

Child rape,
animal abuse,
someone being chopped up with a chainsaw while being "ridden" by a scantily clad woman,
animals being killed for pleasure,
people being forced into the sex industry by circumstances beyond their control.

Can you spot it? Thaaaaat's right, it's the chainsaw one. Because that is a cartoonish unrealistic act that isn't happening in the real world. In much the same way that people aren't being made to masturbate in fear of having a metal spike driven up their arse, or nobody is being killed by having someone fart in their face, the extreme and brutal deaths portrayed in this film are (mostly) unbelievable situations that wouldn't/couldn't happen in real life. And because of that, they can be "entertaining".

The other things on my list? Acts that are far too common and too unpleasant to be used as part of a horror/comedy anthology. I'm not saying they are subjects that should be taboo, but the portrayal of such acts has an appropriate time and place. To have a depiction of a child being raped while an onlooker watches and is obviously sexually thrilled by the act only a few minutes after we've seen a woman killed by a cartoon turd may be seen by many as poor taste.

I don't have any statistics at hand to back up my theory, but I would safely wager that sick bastards torturing and murdering pets, or child rape have far more of a detrimental impact on people in the real world than having their heart ripped out by a bigfoot.

[–] eched 11 years ago

Saying that the L short is unfitting because of the K short before it is pretty unfair. These shorts were made at the same time by two different directors doing their own thing. K didn't know what L was doing, and L didn't know what K was doing. They very well could not have made their shorts fit together. You can not blame L for deciding to be serious just cause there is a funny bit before that. Judge the short on its OWN values, not on the values of the short before it.

My point still stands. Your morality is jaded in the fact that some violence is okay and some isn't. L was SUPPOSED to be dark. The director decided to do this by having dark elements. This does not make it tasteless by default. If it was we would actually see the kid get raped. As I remember the camera pans a way and we don't see anything.

Heck, that cat is also killed off screen. As such I don't see at all how this is playing for a fetish since the 'fetish' subject matter is off screen and isn't even shown.

The short was supposed to bother you, it did, there for it was well made. Done.

Flower power is too much for the dragonzord!

[–] unisonruss 11 years ago

I agree, the second the little boy appeared I immediately wanted to fast-forward because I knew where it was going... and I was already turned off by the premise. I actually kind of hate the short because it went there, there is no place for that in entertainment. As for the little kitten, the majority of people are animal lovers, so I don't know why the filmmaker would think the audience would appreciate that.

[–] dementia_macabre_237 11 years ago

So, let me get this straight, you're complaining that you were disturbed by something that was intended to disturb you? How novel.

[–] Lokisgodhi 11 years ago

They're obviously those people who call the ASPCA to complain about all the things done to the poor coyote in Roadrunner cartoons.

[–] Jesensky 11 years ago

I"m on the side of people who are not "horrified" by what happened, but angered and offended by it. Believe me, I'm as big a horror fan as the next horror junky, but there are certain things that cross the line. And you know what? If they happened in a story where it was central to the plot (youngbuck), and treated with respect (none of A-Z), it would get a pass. But in a horror short where the writer/director is just obviously trying to shock you as much as possible because they aren't creative enough to tell a decent story in 4-6 minutes, it's just poorly done.

I can't even say "in poor taste" or "wrong" because you DO make good points about the lack of balance in indignation. Why SHOULD we be cool with seeing a bunch of people get a spike up their butt, but not ok with the other? It's because the directors are just going for low blows with these, and trying to substitute disgusting and twisted shock for horror.

Whatever - different people have different tastes, but I personally don't want to have a little kid getting *beep* by a guy in a short film about men being forced to jerk off. It's tasteless enough as it is until you introduce a REAL problem that is happening to REAL innocent children. And it's the same deal with the cat - they kid and cat had no part in the story other than being used as shocks. All those guys getting spikes up their butt? They served the story - they were the competition. You couldn't have the story without the human competition. You COULD think up a different not as lazy solution to what ups the ante of a crippled girl using her foot to...yeah.

And the "pressured" short was just garbage all around, in my opinion. I get the message, but it was terrible.

Geez I feel like a whiney little baby on this, but really, the whole thing just offended me. If it wasn't offending my moral sensibilities, it was offending me with it's terrible quality and writing. It was like watching a whole season of Masters of Horror condensed and blended into one 2 hour movie.

And Ti West, I have been your champion since you came on the scene. Everybody would bitch about your movies being "too slow" or "not scary enough" and I would defend you to no end about how amazing your pacing was, and how you were creating actual dread and atmospheric horror - which most horror directors couldn't do if you put a gun to their head. But dude...really? How did that cost $5000 to make? $4000 on cocaine for the cast, $20 on wardrobe, $5 worth of wadded up toilet paper and red food coloring...and then...what...catering? Id say you blew the budget on renting a good camera, but the picture quality tells another story...

[–] flyingcowherder 11 years ago

"Geez I feel like a whiney little baby on this."

You are.

[–] whitespirit26 9 years ago

And you, flying, are a creep.

[–] megaruda 11 years ago

Zzz, the L for Libido wasn't lazy most of what you say it's a fallacie. They weren't lazy solutions, they were creative as he had to show the different stages of the competition making it every time harder to jack off, it was also extremely smart to show the karma biting back at the main character. He cheated at the crippled girl stage because the hostess helped him jerk off, it was unfair for the other guy who had to see the crippled girl with the food instead, then at the end it was unfair for the guy to see a kid being rapped while for that weird dude it was a turn on. So no, you are wrong, it is hard to make sense to that in 5 mins and he did, and all the elements were needed for the story, you just need to think a tinnnnyyyy bit more. And also as far as we know these kind of competitions do not exist so is fiction, if the kid had been raped by a priest at church and not at a jack off contest then your words wouldn't be so fallacious as *beep*!

[–] whitespirit26 9 years ago

"all the elements were needed for the story, you just need to think a tinnnnyyyy bit more"

Yeeaahh, think a litttle more and all that nasty, evil *beep* will make sense and become something worthwhile!

[–] megaruda 9 years ago

You were not forced to watch this movie, deal with it.

[–] whitespirit26 9 years ago

LOL I didn't watch it at all.

[–] megaruda 9 years ago

Then go to a thread of a movie that you actually did watch. Its fair for everyone including you, talking about something you dont even know.

[–] whitespirit26 9 years ago

Yes, I do know it, I've read in detail of every story here and it's sick.

[–] megaruda 9 years ago

Fair enough, I think its a good short film, does what it wants to achieve in less than 5 minutes, an incredibly convoluted plot is given in the easiest way to understand as possible with little to no dialogue, not even one line explaining what it is all about yet everyone gets what is all about, it also delivers a message of some sort of awkward karma and be careful what you desire. Other than these one just maybe 2 others stand out as good or worth watching.

[–] whitespirit26 9 years ago

There might be four or five ones that were worth a reaction more than vomiting. I don't understand the need some have for both violence and sexual filth.

[–] megaruda 9 years ago

I think is very primitive, but I do not say that in a demeaning way, humans are curious for some reason, we always wanted to know how the body worked, thats why some scientists or doctors used to open up pacients to see what was inside, to see how the human body worked, we had gore in real life, we used to called it medicine, according to Steven Pinker, violence has declined A LOT in the last decade : ¨There will always be enough violent deaths to fill the evening news, so people's impressions of violence will be disconnected from its actual likelihood.¨ I just wanted to point out that before trying to explain why we need violence and sexual filth on films. I believe that films, violent films and video games, allow people to be part of a world that they would not want to be in real life, but that does not mean that they would not want to be a part of it from the safety of a movie theater, no one wants to see that torture in real life (unless you are crazey), as far as I go I think it has allowed new originality to pop up with the new tolerance people have to gore nowadays, a movie like The Human Centipede wouldnt have happened in the past, I thought that was a successful example, it really justifies its gore and how gross it was, it is a well done film that delivers a feeling of complete dehumanization not only in flesh but in spirit, on the other hand you have A Serbian film, which fails at justifying the amount of gore and violence it has, and ends up feeling a boring slim plot with filth to fill the screen.

This short film used these violence and sexual filth to deliver a strange story, but it needed both in order to tell that story visually in such a short amount of time, I admire this kind of shameless movie making, when a person know what it needs to show and tells the story with the right amount of violence and sexual filth it needs, using it as a tool to tell a story and not to show off.

[–] whitespirit26 9 years ago

Yes, morons Dementia and Loka, child rape and mutilation are exactly like old cartoons and totally comparable with realistic violence in a movie that actually serves the story.

[–] masuka-fan 11 years ago

I am amazed by the fact you think "Pressure" was in any way lighthearted. It is the single most grim and depressing segment in the film, possibly the only one without even a scintilla of humor in it. It isn't supposed to turn anyone on. You are supposed to be disturbed and horrified by the depths to which one woman can sink.

If you thought it was lighthearted, then you might have a problem.

[–] agentalize 11 years ago

Obviously I personally didn't find it light hearted or else this thread would not exist. I felt they acted as though it was a light hearted means to an end when they show the lady all happy as a clam with her kids at the end. Like "aaaahhhh all is well"

[–] moonlillie 9 years ago

She was happy, because she got her daughter the birthday present she wanted to. She was PRESSURED into doing so. You do what you gotta do, to take care of your own.

[–] sday149 10 years ago

You are not the only one. I was disturbed by L is for Libido after seeing the child, I knew what was going to happen when I saw the boy laying on the bed. I was also disturbed by T is for Toilet, V is for Vagitus. Violence against children is just hard for me to watch.

[–] whitespirit26 9 years ago

Yes OP, this collection is full of sick, stupid, gratitious and immature garbage.