I agree that it was too much. The problem was with the tone. It's fine for a movie to show children getting killed as long as that's treated with appropriate somberness. When it's played for laughs, it becomes insensitive.
I get that the point of this type of movie is that it shows you who the bad guys are by having them do terrible things, so that we can root for them to get their just comeuppance (by getting brutally killed later on). That's how these revenge-themed movies work - they build the audience's anger, then give them a cathartic release as the bad guys get punished.
But Ivan and Slick had already been shown to be horrible psychopaths deserving of violent deaths, having murdered plenty of people already. Having them murder a school bus full of kids just ruins the mood, because at that point, there is no punishment so severe that it would satisfy me emotionally. Slick gets shot in the junk and bleeds to death, and instead of being happy, I just thought, "Good, but so what? Those kids are still dead." On a psychological level, it wasn't worth seeing the kids die just so I could see Slick get killed later on.
Similarly, other victims in the film are among the most helpless and innocent: the mother and baby hiding in the dumpster who get burned to death, the hospital employees who get slaughtered by The Plague. The perpetrators of those murders don't even get punished in the end, so there's no satisfaction at all. It left a bad taste in my mouth. I'm fine with brutal violence in movies that's played for laughs as long as it's happening to the right people. That was not the case here.
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StaunchWoman
10 years ago
It's fine for a movie to show children getting killed as long as that's treated with appropriate somberness.
As long as they tell you how to feel about it right?
We've met before, haven't we?
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Fillmore85
9 years ago
No, nice try though. Come back in 10 years, kid.
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StaunchWoman
9 years ago
No, nice try though.
What's this attempt you think I've tried to make?
I'm pointing out that any scene can be interpreted in different ways, but it's how you react to it that matters. They can show X with all the somberness in the world, some will still laugh.
We've met before, haven't we?
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Fillmore85
8 years ago
No, it's not some arthouse movie that's open to interpretation. This isn't Ingmar Bergman, or a movie with morally ambiguous characters. It's an homage to silly grindhouse revenge movies of the 70's. The entire point is pure dumb audience manipulation. Introduce the hero, introduce the villain, have the villain do something bad so we dislike them, show the hero get revenge. It's a basic formula, it works. They went over the line here.
Your apparent belief that you are somehow "above" basic artistic manipulation (hint: you aren't) paints you as a teenager or college freshman who took an Intro to Film Studies class and thinks they know stuff, and wants to look smart. Manipulating the audience's emotions is a basic storytelling and artistic tool. Hitchcock did it all the time. Not everything is meant to be "up to the viewer".
They attempted a basic, tried and true formula here. They didn't nail it. Acting like a dumb grindhouse homage is "open to interpretation" just paints you as an immature kid who can't even succeed at being pretentious.
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Q-Murda
9 years ago
The doctor who threw an elderly lady's walker in a fit of rage and opened fire upon two people he thought were only junkies was innocent? The orderlies murdered by the Plague didn't deserve to die but forgive me if I appear apathetic to the plight of the brash doctor who was skewered in self-defense.
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