Gore-happy movie watchers disturbing

I love violent movies. When James Bond destroys an entire terrorist arms market, I am… I love violent movies. When James Bond destroys an entire terrorist arms market, I am delighted; Neo beating Agent Smith to a pulp brings a giant smile.

What I do not love is gore. It is not because of morality or a weak stomach – I worked in the laundry at a nursing home, so queasiness left me sometime ago. I hate gore because the audience turns savage at the first sight of it.

This weekend, “Kill Bill” was my destination. This film had been enticing me for a while now. My friends forced me to watch “Seven Samurai” and “Yojimbo” in preparation for this new American samurai film. Finally, Hollywood was going to get this genre right.

I had not seen a film this bloody since “Natural Born Killers.” Never did I think I would leave the theater appalled. I will not blame Tarantino for this, because the film was not that bad. Uma Thurman was great, and Lucy Liu – a personal favorite – played a magnificent assassin. Most of my distress sprung from the audience during the film. People were yelling, clapping and laughing – laughing. Not at cheesy puns, but at a rape or at the wholesale slaughtering of an army. When I say slaughter, I don’t exaggerate. A butcher shop has less blood than this film. Rarely did I hear a gasp or exclamation of horror – just enough laughing to make me ponder it for the weekend.

This must have been what it was like to be the one person sitting in the Colosseum at Rome not wanting to see the criminals fed to the lions.

As most of you know, “Kill Bill” is being heralded as the phenomenal new action film that everybody must go to see. And the public loves it; its earnings can speak to that.

So I propose this question: why are we so fascinated with gory violence? Where does our bloodlust come from, and why is blood successful in entertaining the masses? From Bram Stoker to Anne Rice, there is an erotic predilection toward blood. Stephen King drenched a prom queen in it and Mortal Combat made all of us learn the infamous blood code.

A few years ago, sites like goregallery.com and rotten.com were all the rage. As you may surmise, these Web sites portrayed the most gruesome and horrific images imaginable. I remember the underground rave movie called “Cannibal Holocaust” from high school. It prided itself on being the “goriest movie ever!” The Internet was abuzz on finding copies of this film – most had to be brought in from Canada. How could we not turn away from a movie with a tagline like that?

Art for generations has been able to produce death without showing us the bodies. At the theater, you hear a scream offstage, and the butler walks on a moment later, polishing a knife. No blood, no gore, but, unless you are absolutely dimwitted, you know that the butler just killed someone. But the lowest common denominator of the audience does not accept subtlety in any form. If action is not explicit, then forget it.

In reality, life is not that explicit. Sometimes I wish it were – I wish people told me why it would not work out or how fat I really look in that sweater. The lies the President tells are subtle enough that they fly under most people’s radar. Our reality is nothing but subtle.

I can’t provide any answers. I just know that I was quite bothered by the merriment of my fellow moviegoers. This should have been a film I loved, but I walked out of it and talked about my disappointment for days after. Why do we enjoy blood spurting like geysers or the intricacies of disembowelment? I do not need the overt idea of death – a bloody butler or a scream is enough to make it understood.

Were you trying to remember the blood code the whole time? I am sure you were. It’s: A, B, A, C, A, B. E-mail Josh Ferris at jlf12@pitt.edu.