View Full Version : Relative who is obsessed with gore
I find this so weird. I have a nephew in his 30's. He's single. He's always been sort of strange. He's always been obsessed with horror and gore. My mother was sort of like that, as far as movies and books. As a young child, she forced me to watch a horribly gory horror movie at the drive in and refused my pleas to go home.....which may be why I don't like these things, but I just don't get it.
Seems like all my nephew does on Facebook is write about the gory-est movies, etc. Halloween is his favorite holiday, since he can dress up in some gory monster costume with fake blood all over his face and a hatchet in his head and be with his friends who like the same.
Can anyone enlighten me as to the interest in this? The psychology behind it? He seems to have grown up in a decent family. I just don't get it.
There are so many beautiful, gentle things in life to love. Why this??
Well I can't really enlighten you but I am a HUGE horror fan (and gory crime too). Don't really know why as I'm pretty normal in most ways and do still appreciate the many beautiful and gentle things in life too. Maybe even more so because I have the gritty and gorry to contrast it. I read lots of short horror stories, watch any horror movie or TV show that's new, and most gory crime shows like Criminal Minds - but hate the CSI shows (can we kill off that smug SOB David Carurso already :devil:?). The raunchier and grittier a show, movie or book is, the better I like it. My Mom hated all that stuff so guess it's not genetic or whacky parenting - just a personal thing.
mostly, it's how people handle -- personally and culturally -- the anxiety around injury and death.
additionally, it gives people hormonal rushes -- adrenaline mostly -- people become excited about the fear, the same way that someone who buggy jumps does (also an adrenaline rush). So, it's a bit of a "high" for people.
it does desensitize to violence, but it doesn't necessarily mean that the people are violent. most recognize it as entertainment/fantasy violence, and so its really no different at that level than -- say -- reading romance novels makes one have warped relationships.
mostly, it's how people handle -- personally and culturally -- the anxiety around injury and death.
additionally, it gives people hormonal rushes -- adrenaline mostly -- people become excited about the fear, the same way that someone who buggy jumps does (also an adrenaline rush). So, it's a bit of a "high" for people.
it does desensitize to violence, but it doesn't necessarily mean that the people are violent. most recognize it as entertainment/fantasy violence, and so its really no different at that level than -- say -- reading romance novels makes one have warped relationships.
Good answer Zoe - I agree to everything you said. I do get a bit of a rush and am often disappointed if things are too unsensational. And it does desensitize to violence as I find many of the things that gross out or upset others, doesn't bother me at all. It may also be becauae of ones background as a kid, ones personal experiences as a kid or adult, how independant and experienced in the real world they are, or even one's profession (how many battle scarred veterans would be b othered of seeing a gory dead body on TV?). Boys and men, who are probably more interested in gore and violence then many girls and women, have been playing violent type games, reading and watching that kind of stuff since they were kids. Where as girls generally get the "My Pretty Pony" and "Carebear" type toys, books and movies, boys get the "GI Joes" "transformers", type. Of course now that girls and women are exposed to more violent types or things, they are developing an equal interest in them as adults.
I was bothered by gore alot and dealt with it by working in the E.R. It never really bothered me there though.......probably because I had a job to do and wasn't just watching it from a distance, helplessly.
I do like some of the crime shows, but when they aren't gory and mostly just crime-solving.
I had real problems watching the driver's ed movies they used to make us watch. In fact, I would have to leave. I think its more gore associated with violence that gets to me. Just isn't entertainment to me.
But to each his/her own.
Spartana: Count me in as another ghoul, but a totally non-violent person in real life. My mother can't stand horror or gore, and protected me from it as a child, so needless to say I couldn't wait to see my first horror movies! Maybe it's an every other generation thing.
Zoebird: I think you're right. Stephen King says horror movies and novels are our "dress rehearsal" with death.
Cathy: I can see where those who have dealt with it on a professional level might eschew it for entertainment. Interestingly, my Mom was a nurse by profession.
I'm not into slasher/gore media much, but I loved murder mysteries as a kid (Agatha Christie!) and then moved on to an interest in true crime and police procedurals as a young adult when Ted Bundy was working his way through the region. I watch the Investigation Discovery channel on a regular basis. I heard crime writer Ann Rule once describe her audience as the kind of people who, when they see a spider in their home, carefully take it outside. That would be me. And I love Halloween and the Day of the Dead. Like others, I think it's a fascination with the forbidden or with the inscrutable, or just enjoyment of the adrenalin rush that comes with (controllable) fear. Some people love roller coasters, the taller the better.
Another Ann Rule fan here! I think one of the reasons I like gory crime dramas like "Bones", is that they are often based on real life cases. I have a BS in Criminal Justice and have looked at some of the most horrendous crime scene photos ever (as well as seen drowning, accident, suicide, and gun shot victims IRL) and the TV shows and movies, no matter how graphic, rarely (never IMHO) come close to reality. Cathy A, as an ER nurse, probably has experienced this too. I think that we, as a society, are pretty shielded by what really happens "out there" in IRL and maybe that interest in piqued when it's depicted on TV on many of the newer shows. But is it entertainment? Probably to some, probably not to others.
Just had to share that from the title, I thought this post was going to be about Al Gore. haha! :laff:
ApatheticNoMore
1-6-12, 2:19pm
Just had to share that from the title, I thought this post was going to be about Al Gore. haha!
Yea me too and imagining:
"But ... but ... there is no proof of man-made global warming. But he lives in a giant mansion! Solar flares, it's all solar flares .... carbon credits! all a scheme to sell carbon credits!".
Really it's hard to even joke about politics anymore, but the imagery was funny to me :)
I like horror and crime novels, tv and movies, but I don't really care for the true crime ones. It seems to me that the things real people do are far worse than anything a writer can come up with and reading about something horrific that happened to a real person is just too much for me. It probably doesn't help that I only read before I go to sleep and Ann Rule books lead to some less-than-pleasant dreams!
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