This article contains mild spoilers for the following movies: Longlegs, Talk to Me and Hereditary
Banging your head on a table is now considered peak gore moments in horror movies
After seeing Longlegs, kind of a cool movie, visually anyways, loved the mood for the most part, and as a liker of Oz Perkins' work, at least to some degree, with my most favorite being Blackcoat's Daughter, I realized something that sustainably irritates me.
It was not that long before I watched Longlegs that I watched Talk to Me. I was somewhat confused by what many reviewers seemingly perceived as "one of the most disturbing acts of violence in a horror movie in horror movie history" - end quote. Ok, I thought. What scene could that be? I was genuinely curious.
I watched out the entire movie, paid close attention to what they could mean by that. After it ended, I was left baffled and the only scene that I thought would fit that description is one that is blatantly copied, or lovingly homaged towards a somewhat new horror classic, which came out before and was a trendsetter on the horror front til this day, for better, but also often for worse.
The movie I am talking about was part of forming the questionable term of ""elevated" horror".
I am not a fan of the term "elevated horror", to say it mildly. I find it equally nonsensical as the term "Walking Simulator" in video games. The former is a term used by non horror fans to justify them for once liking a horror movie. The second term is made up by genre elitists, who want to talk down on media that delivers an experience outside of the regular uber hero fantasies or "shooting sims", but back to the topic, argh...
I am talking about the movie Hereditary.
Please look at these gifs to see the pattern:
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| The source |
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| The blatant rip (or perhaps loving homage) |
I didn't find a gif of Longlegs. But here's a time stamp.
And this is what I think of this:
I would have never believed to live in a time where horror gets so lazy that a mere act of self inflicted harm inspires other creators to copy it, no matter how disjointed it seems to their own plots.
Sure, possession and all. Peter was possessed in Hereditary, too. But I do not understand that this is what demonic possession now has become. BANG YOUR HEAD ON A TABLE. Are you kidding me?
Maybe it's a sign of our times. Maybe, somehow it is super smart, and a reflection of ourselves staring into our phones all day and the harm we do to ourselves, like a violent metaphor that fits with current gen.
Maybe, we live in times where it is the everyday, totally possible, unexpected violence on every day objects that is something that induces more fear than any other over the top slasher kills. Fair! I even kind of like the thought...
However, we need to keep in mind that Hereditary, albeit I don't know if the first one of the kind, did this scene inside a movie where this particular event was nothing more than a small part of the plot. It was never meant to be THE main attraction.
Talk to Me just grabs it, packs it into a can, strips off the label and sells it as its own. Which would not be bad, say, if it was a homage of sorts, which it might be, as the creators are huge horror fans (so I heard).
However, the fact that this scene IS the freaking CLIMAX in terms of violence in this movie is beyond cringe for me. I find it so lazy that I want to throw myself out of the window when I see how much the scene got praised for being "extreme".
And that's the next thing. I can maybe see some Youtubers (which the directors of Talk To Me are) being excited and doing something lazy (or homage'ing) like this. But Oz Perkins, jeez. I would never have expected this from him as a director.
Once Nic Cage bangs himself to death by hitting his head on a table in Longlegs, I was out, completely taken out of the immersion of the movie's experience. (aside the fact they spoon-feed you the whole plot again at the end for generation "look at your phone the entire movie while sitting in the theatre and get angry if not understanding the movie at the end")
Even if, say, I wouldn't have watched Hereditary before Longlegs, nor Talk to Me, I am certain I would have found this sudden "bang head on a table" thing simply... lame. And I mean lame in the lamest possible way.
It's so sad that creators have to pick some side event that happened in a wildly popular movie and put that into their own as a climax (yep, it's climax sort of in both, Longlegs and Talk To Me). How creatively bankrupt has this whole horror game become? I struggle to understand this. I know horror has its trends, like the fear of children, recently we apparently fear old people, aging, etc, but come on, "bang head on table" takes it to a whole nother level of shallowness.
I know making movies, or anything exciting and impactful is hard. But what completely drives me nuts is the waves of "non criticism" , "acceptance" , or even "embracing" of such lazyness. Saying someone banging their head on a table is the most extreme thing you ever saw shows that you are not very versed in the genre you are exploring or even claiming to be a fan of. Fair enough. But for the love of Satan please look around and seek out other movies, and especially the sources of which this ""terrifying" bang head on table" thing was ripped from, which is HEREDITARY. It has much more to offer than banging head on table when it comes to creative violence and terror.
The mere fact that creators jus grab whatever they deemed working as "extreme" and clone it into their movie no matter what (same in video games), no matter if it fits the plot, if it fits the criteria of demonic possession (I don't think Longlegs is possessed at all), and then audiences not even noticing this rehashing and half assed recycling of existing ideas and staging anymore is way more scary to me than Talk to Me and Longlegs together.
And before this goes on nonsensically, I will leave and say: watch Hereditary. And:
Hail Paimon!
I wouldn't be surprised if we see more "Bang head on table" in future movies to come. Jus you wait!
The log ends here. Continues elsewhere.
Thanks for letting me be part of your reality