MovieChat Forums > Where the Dead Go to Die (2012) Discussion > Deep? Or Simply Depraved?

Deep? Or Simply Depraved?

posted 12 years ago by The-Kurgan
7 replies | jump to latest

I'm still debating with myself whether this film is a brilliant piece of work spotlighting the surreal psychosis of a severely fractured mind, or merely a seriously depraved venture into shock cinema. It's a tough call.

That intense deprivation and deeply disturbing events and imagery is present isn't up for debate, so let's set that aside and focus on the "story." It's billed as being about a demonic dog taking several children on hellrides, or at least that's the writeup on IMDB. However, it certainly appears as if we're viewing time and events through the thoroughly twisted, utterly garbled lens of a schizophrenic mind.

The various characters encountered often exhibit overlapping tidbits of back-story; not just location (which is a given), but in personal history. For example, the adult "memory killer," during a flashback, has a picture on the wall behind him, drawn by a child (logically assumed to be his), apologizing for something that the first young boy claimed was his fault, even though he's supposed to be the second boy, now grown. Little snippets like this, along with identical "satanic" and equally fractured imagery between protagonists, gives the impression that these are all splinters from the same mangled psyche. In other words, it appeared to me that the three young boys, as well as the adult "memory killer," are all the same person, suffering both intense schizophrenia and multiple personalities (the latter justified and explained in the adult "Tommy's" mind by his belief in Liquid Memories).

Ultimately everything comes full-circle, but is it indeed one story seen from multiple, broken perspectives, or is it truly intended to be just a neighborhood full of kids with really poor taste in homicidal, not-so-imaginary anthropomorphic friends?

I'm reminded of how, with Donnie Darko, if you really wanted to understand how and why everything happened, you had to go online and search for Roberta Sparrow's book on the Tangent Universe. WTDGTD similarly needs something for viewers to turn to afterwards to see if they've interpreted it correctly, or completely missed the mark (or maybe a bit of both). It would be nice to be able to read the author's thoughts on what his motivation and intent was with the story.

[–] disinter 12 years ago

I'd say deep AND depraved. I applaud the guts it took to make this.

[–] yaktheripper 12 years ago

As do I disinter.

[–] bronwyn_has_hiv 11 years ago

Congrats to the makers because this was the worst movie I have and will have ever seen in my life. I say this as an artist, a horror fan, an animator and a human. It was so bad I fast forwarded the last half an hour. 0% redemption.. How often is a movie so bad it makes you angry? Best 'troll' alive or I don't even know why they got out of bed.

[–] yaktheripper 12 years ago

This is an excellent point The Kurgan. Something I remember thinking about during the movie and forgot in my review, and I agree it is altogether possible, even likely that this is a movie involving schizophrenia. All of the tell tale signs are there and yes it does work full circle.
If you think about the ending and who was there, then all signs lead you to this conclusion.
Either way...even if depraved, it is a deep movie. The dialogue is intelligent as are the motivations and actions of the characters. This isn't some Troma, let me see how far we can push it, type movie. For the record I enjoyed quite a few Troma movies but not one comes this far in it's attempts to push the boundaries of visual madness.
There are indeed several segments, I remember, where there are pictures and other clues involved in the environment involving clues to characters from other segments. I will have to watch this again sometime soon to add these pieces together and edit my review, which in any case was a extremely positive one.
Great post by the way...cheers!

[–] Stay_away_from_the_Metropol 12 years ago

Yeah I don't know why it always has to be one or the other. I think it is absolutely both.

[–] akuma634 11 years ago

I watched the blu-ray with director's commentary. He did say that there wasn't any symbolism, the really surreal scenes were there to look very surreal but there wasn't a hidden message to any of it. Plus a lot of the ideas he came up with were mostly stuff he thought of while smoking weed. He's very honest in his commentary. The weird part is that Tainted Milk was meant to be funny, he really thought this was going to be a dark comedy but it just ended up very disturbing. I loved the movie but for the most part it falls into art without trying to be art.

[–] hexedd 11 years ago

" I loved the movie but for the most part it falls into art without trying to be art."

Well said Akuma. And "art" doesn't necessarily need to be produced with conscious intent. We are all driven by thoughts and desires that go beyond and are deeper than conscious spur-of-the-moment thoughts, so even if it was produced by accident it can never be a total "accident." That's the irony of any artistic production: even the most consciously tinkered art is still at some level the product of life experiences and unconscious thoughts of its creator. The best example of this, especially how it pertains to this film, is the culturally constructed thoughts and ideas of even the most delusional and mentally disturbed persons. During the age of Napoleon those with delusional ideas claimed to be Napoleon, but this doesn't happen anymore. Nowadays it would be the delusion of being Barack Obama, or Prince William, or some other cultural figure from today.

So my very long-winded point is that whether or not it was intended by the director to be art or simply a series of depraved images is kind of moot, since no one can completely consciously OR accidentally produce things like this, it is always a combination of both. ;) Here I will cite Dali who said "Those do not want to imitate anything, produce nothing." I'd view this movie as simply a combination of the director's fantasies and a series of cultural symbols he's been exposed to throughout his life (notice the constant imagery of crosses, for example). Anyway, that's just my two cents, and I hope it made a bit of sense to everyone else.