The Gory Nature of Frontier(s)

The one After Dark HorrorFest movie that has plagued me for some time now has been Frontier(s) because I missed out on the showing and I heard rave reviews about it’s brutality and it’s performances. Well, I had a chance to finally watch it and I thought it was a pretty good movie. I enjoyed the story, I enjoyed the performances and I especially enjoyed the fact that it pays homage to The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. However, what I want to talk about is the gore and the brutality of Frontier(s). I enjoy seeing gore and I enjoy seeing a little brutality but with this movie, it seems like an excuse to spray blood and guts on beautiful woman.

Note: I think I am probably one of the few people who is actually bothered by the gore and brutal nature of the film.

When we see the main heroine push one of her captors over a table saw and starts sawing him in half blood is sprayed all over as she is screaming and yelling and crying and everything but she doesn’t leave. She still stands there letting all the blood spray all over her and the camera is more focused on her screaming, as her face is drenched in blood than anything else. I guess psychologically you would be traumatized but I just find it a tad idiotic.

I guess the way I see it, considering how long it was and the fact that the camera was ore focused on the blood spraying on her face, this scene is just a last minute excuse to make the movie more brutal and make an attractive female lead go through an even more unlikely traumatic experience. Of course a lot of parts in this movie are unlikely but to me this one is just pushing it. I already felt for the character but I didn’t need to see her caked in blood to make me feel like she went through a truly life changing experience.

This isn’t the first movie that I felt this way, in fact I felt the same way when I saw High Tension when Alexa was in the back seat of the car and Marie was sawing the guy’s face in half as blood and brains coated Alexa’s face. She is just seated there letting herself get drenched in blood and not moving out of the car. Again, I think it’s just an excuse to take a pretty woman and soak her in blood to stimulate horror fans.

Though these scenes didn’t really ruin the movies for me at all; I loved High Tension despite its flaws and I enjoyed Frontier(s) quite a bit. I just think scenes like these don’t have to be in movies to try to out-beat other horror films in terms of blood and brutality. However, for those of you that really know me… you’ll know that I am not a big fan of gore because I don’t think excessive amounts of it are scary. I don’t know, I know I am in the minority on this but it’s just a concern that I have. I still enjoyed the movies.

Extreme High Tension

I was talking with Paul Metcalf who runs The Pissed off Geek about High Tension the other night and we were discussing the brutality of the film, and that was my third or fourth viewing of the movie. This was something that I noticed the first time that I saw it, the brutality and the gore that I saw was so intense that captivated me and took me away from the plot a little… but I still loved the movie. I enjoyed the twist and on this viewing I saw some of the plot holes but I want to discuss the brutality a little bit.

For me, I guess the one scene that I found as a shocker was the ending when the ‘killer’ takes a buzz saw and jumps on a car and shreds apart the window as ‘he’ makes his way towards the driver. Its ridiculously gory and blood is spraying everywhere, the screaming won’t stop, the noise is ear piercing and I never expected it to get this gory. When you see the character of Alex getting sprayed with another man’s blood as is unable to get out of the car, you have to feel sorry for this poor girl. She has been through so much and this is the icing on the brutal birthday cake. Hell, I think this scene actually became one of the more famous kill scenes in horror history.

What does this prove exactly? Well, first off, it’s proof that Alexandre Aja is one sick twisted son of a bitch who knows how to keep you captivated in a story. However, it also proves that the Unites States are not the only ones that know the ropes of a good splatter flick, that the French are making a name for themselves in the horror industry with extremely intense and gory movies. Even with the decapitation scene in the beginning, the murders only heighten and when Marie wraps the barb wire around the wooden pole and beats the killer in the face with it, I knew right away that there was going to be a bloody finish… and boy was I right.