I think it's easy to forget the impact that movies or scenes have if we've seen them so many times that they become part of popular culture. I've heard the line "he doesn't want us to cut through our chains. He wants us to cut through our feet" so many times over the years that I don't stop to think about how messed up it is. The killer in this movie kidnapped victims, chains them in these elaborate traps, then sees if they are willing to mutilate themselves in order to survive. At some point, after enough of the movies are released, people started to look forward to seeing the cool, elaborate traps, and forget the horror of being a person who wakes up, doesn't know where they are, and then slowly realizes that they have to decide if they want to live so badly that they're willing to make themselves suffer horrific injury in order to stay alive. I'm hoping that in watching these movies again, I'm able to feel their impact and remember how they ushered in a new wave of interest in horror movies by being graphic and disturbing.
It all started with this movie. A man wakes up in a dark room, chained, doesn't remember how he got there, then discovers there's another man chained across the room from him, but this man at least has a clue what's going on. They're both victims of a killer who abduct his victims, sets them up in complicated traps, then communicates through pre-recorded videos that slowly reveal what they will have to do in order to survive. They must cut themselves, sometimes even saw off limbs, in order to escape the traps and live. Most of his victims end up dying in this process. The police are stumped, because the killer never leaves evidence behind that they can follow, and one cop, played by Danny Glover, is especially obsessed with hunting and catching the killer. The story unfolds in various flashback scenes, and we learn who the men in the room are and how they got into the situation they're in. It's all very dark and mysterious and grisly.
I forgot how obsessed Danny Glover's character is in this movie. Glover is an intense actor, and he plays the super focused cop very well. Cary Elwes plays a doctor who is one of the men chained in the room trying to figure a way out, and he also does a good job playing the smug doctor who neglects his family to focus on his career, and must decide if going through life hobbled is worth it to stay alive. That's really a fucked up choice when you think about it.
These movies always kind of piss me off, because someone not wanting to saw their own foot off doesn't mean they don't want to live. Just because some psycho killer sets up this scenario and makes you play out his fantasy doesn't mean you have to accept his version of reality. It took me years to learn this. Growing up in an abusive situation, your abuser sees the world a certain way, and as time goes on, no matter how messed up it is, you start accepting that version of reality is real, but that's bullshit. You're not to blame for what someone else does to you, no matter how you've messed up, you don't deserve the horror and torture and abuse.
That's where Danny Glover's character gets it so wrong. He becomes obsessed with stopping the killer because he wants payback, revenge, and not because the killer needs to be stopped because his whole worldview is so fucked up, and it's infecting other people and making them believe that the guy is right. The bullshit is spreading, and that makes it dangerous. That's how the killer is able to set up these elaborate scenarios, because he convinces people to help him. That should terrify you! Not only is there torture and gore, but there are people who think it's a good thing and they want to help! That makes me want to vomit more than blood and gore ever could.
The killer in this movie sets things up with this whole ideology that people aren't appreciating their lives and they need to be taught a lesson, and once they're injured and mutilated, they'll be grateful to be alive, so they've learned a lesson, so the torture is a good thing! It helps people! That's completely insane, but some people accept that "lesson" as though it were true. That bugs me, almost more than any of the horror and gore in the movies, that getting people to accept that their torture is a good thing is the most horrific part of these movies for me. I think the movies have such a strong impact on me because they make me rise up and say that abuse is wrong. I appreciate anything that moves me this much and brings back my fighting spirit, so I appreciate this movie.
No comments:
Post a Comment