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Sep 2022

I'm really curious to hear your responses especially as a horror/thriller author! :hype_01: If you also write disturbing content- I'd love to hear what your limits are when writing/drawing stuff like that as well.

Note: the distrubing content doesn't have to stick to the horror/thriller genre either!

For me, I tend to like darker material so most of the time, so I'm usually not that picky with gore and disturbing topics.

HOWEVER- I really despise when the entire story is just characters suffering. I need a bit of a balance of bad and good things happening to want to see the character get to a better place. Just watching someone suffer in agony in a story for so long makes me miserable.

I especially hate when disturbing topics/imagery are solely used for shock value all the time. In this regard, I tend to think of the trend of people watching disturbing movies to see if they can stomach it, and most of the time I feel like that sort of media deliberately tries to be as shocking and disgusting as possible just for that title. My examples would be the trend of people watching 'A Serbian Film' or 'The Human Centipede.' I've never watched these nor do I plan to, but to me, even hearing the plot of these makes me want to throw up.

Idc if people think "it's not that bad," I'm just thinking "why did you feel the need to make this?" to these directors half the time. There is merit in overly disturbing works, yes, but it is just not for me sometimes, my god.

As an author I have a similar threshold with my work. While I do have blood and gore in my comic (later on) as well as disturbing content, I keep that to specific moments because of their impact. I stick to reading and writing psychological horror and thriller, and brutalising my characters constantly is not on my list of requirements :sweat_02: I as the author need a mix of happy and disturbing moments within my work for a nice balance for my own sanity :tapa_pop: I like high stakes and dramatic moments, but not all the damn time.

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    Sep '22
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I definitely feel a similar way. I love to explore darker themes and take a lot of inspiration from horrific and brutal stories to the point that I honestly feel desensitized and can stomach just about anything in fiction. I'm willing to get just as dark in my own writing and even plan to in the future.

But like you said, stories that are intentionally trying to be as shocking as possible kind of end up undermining themselves because of it. Heck, I recently watched 'A Serbian Film' and it's definitely exactly what I had heard in descriptions, but it's so aggressively "horrible" that it ended up being unintentionally comedic in some scenes. Frankly, the film just isn't worth anyone's time regardless of how well they can stomach the visuals because it spends so much time and effort to be shocking that it forgets to actually say anything meaningful.

Some of my favorite stories are ones that aren't afraid to get very dark and "too real" in some cases, but what makes them work is they're not romanticizing the suffering itself or are trying to simply shock viewers. Rather, they try to illustrate the art of struggling and persevering despite the extreme problems a character might go through which I always find to be super fascinating. It's admittedly a subtle difference at times, but it's really all about execution.

I can take quote a bit of gore, but not really nsfw stuff.
Same with what I make, too. ...Not much else to say there.

Mixed

If drawn or just in writing, I can handle and enjoy the most depraved really. There is alot of artistic merit and buetiy in drawn and beautifully written messed up content. Like exquisite corpse is a damn good book and it is very gorey and have so much messed up NSFW stuff its impressive the writer manage to make it similar to poetry in prose

But live action is different in a sense its harder for me stomach. Especially in the case of disturbing media that uses actual child actors even as minor characters just Its seems a bit unethical to me

Like I enjoyed saw (except saw 3d that film was trash). Human centipede (1st movie) was honestly not that disturbing to me. The premise was disturbing but other than that the whole vibe was very... clinical if I must saw. The 2nd movie I havent and cant watch cus from the little clips I see it's too much honestly, same with Serbian film.

Live action films that kill real animals just to shock you cross a line with me. And would never engage with that awful stuff. There's no reason to do that and just cements the director as some edgy lord try hard doushe.

Looking at you melancholia der angle. Fuck that film

Tbh I think there's a difference between 'intensity of disturbingness' and 'frequency of disturbingness'.

I can stomach a very high intensity of disturbingness, provided I'm forewarned. I'm talking real dead dove territory. 120 Days of Sodom territory. Conversely if I'm not forewarned, my threshhold might even be on the low side XD If I'm eating, I literally have to pause and set aside the food if I hit a scene that's just sad but not even that disturbing :stuck_out_tongue:

As for frequency of disturbingness, I'm also not a huge fan of all suffering all the time, but mostly because it just gets tedious and monotonous. There's no darkness without light, and the disturbing moments hit harder when it's contrasted with chill and/or happy moments :]

Ofc anything that involves hurting real living beings in the process of production is a huge no. That's a whole 'nother topic as far as I'm concerned ...

I'm not into horror stuff, but I slightly more into the thriller stuff rather than horror. I know watching stuff like Squid Game that I had to close my eyes to some deaths of it because it got very disturbing. Oddly, I can stomach the whole first game of that series but I can't for some of the others. If the whole media is in animation, it depends. Things like dog killing in Jojo Bizarre Adventure did bother me a bit but at least I understood why it was there only to make the bad guys look bad. It made it easier to watch but it was still awful.

I prefer more psychological straight up horror/thriller a bit more. As for my current stories, I do dip into dark themes but I do think I hold back much on it. I know I'm capable writing it but at times I chose not to for a variety of reasons.

I think it depends.

I am not a fan of hyper violence or body horror. I tend to like horror that focuses more on psychological or social issues. I am not a fan of action movies mostly because I think the gore is gross and people fighting for long periods of time is boring. Watching people get hurt can also make me super depressed and it will sometimes trigger intrusive thoughts. This is why I usually try not to watch shock horror because I do not want PTSD-like thoughts after watching a film.

On the other hand, I think I have a higher tolerance then most people for medical stuff especially with skin. I sometimes like to learn about different skin conditions and look up pictures of them. I also didn't find the scene in the new Candyman with the beehive skin disturbing.

I also tend to be OK if it is less realistic. Like in Danganrompa or Drifting Classroom. Or stuff like Superjail where it is so ridiculous you can't take it seriously.

So far, I'm kinda on the same boat with OP
To add, if it's real life or a recreation of a real life event, I'd find it more disturbing than fiction.

Lmao! It's a good thing you've never read my comic. While it gets better later on, right now it's all "Wow, this sucks."

Honestly, as a reader, I don't really have a threshold. I can even handle really messed up rl stuff in portions. There are some things I will think are gross in a "that's unnecessary" kind of way, but in those cases I like to delve a bit into the person behind it. Half the time it's a kid, but sometimes you get particularly eccentric people who just like to make loud statements when arguing something. (It could also just be someone with a fetish or venting trauma.) At the end of the day it's none of my business, and I'm not particularly bothered by it, but it's still fun to get more context for particularly gnarly fiction.
Admittedly I am one of those types who seeks out disturbing content to push my threshold, but it's more of a control thing than a cute "Can I Stomach This?" challenge. Although it is fun to psychoanalyze the "artistic" choices behind the disturb stuff, sometimes you find really interesting things from delving into the deconstructive discussions on such media.

Speaking of, since you brought up 'A Serbian Film'. A while back I found a video and some discussion on the deconstruction of the movie, they had some interesting viewpoints, talking about how it's a visceral criticism of the porn industry. They also did analyses of the shot compositions, and what the director was trying to say with them. While I can't find it now because this was all before Youtube cracked down on mature videos, and the discussion was probably 10 years ago now, it did make me see the movie from a different perspective. Also, minus the gross stuff, I do think some of the shots look pretty good from a technical standpoint.
Not saying this to get you, or anyone, to watch it. I just saw the title drop and had to go on a tangent. Personally though, I think 'Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom', 'Slaughtered Vomit Dolls' and 'Nekromantik' are more stomach churning. Saw those movies once and I'll be fine never seeing them again.

Now that I think about it the one theme I can't handle is upsetting pet related stuff that isn't cartoonishly over the top, and clearly involving stuffed "stunt doubles". Like, even the most vanilla "Pet got separated from owner and can't understand" stuff is too upsetting, although it's worse if you hear about inhumane behind the scenes practices. I used to love Milo and Otis, but upon hear about what they did to the cats and dogs to make the movie what it is, I can't bring myself to feel even remotely alright about it. (Thank you for destroying my childhood, Lindsay Ellis! x'D) Similar with hearing about messed up stuff happening to children and adults behind the scenes of a film, but I'm ashamed to admit that I'm particularly invested in pets.

As a creator it really depends on what I want to make. I like edgelord shock value stuff when that's the point of the story, I also like sexualized Grindhouse style of horror, and gross out for the sake of gross out. I guess if it doesn't fit in with the themes and context of the story then I won't add it in, also I probably won't ever be able to do dark, or remotely challenging non-andromorphic animal stuff.

For me, I can't handle anything where animals, women and children are hurt.

I have a relatively low threshold for what I'll put up with. My line is usually: "Did it feel like there was a point? Or did it feel like the creator just enjoys depiction of suffering for the sake of it."

I've made it through some fairly brutal stuff. I watched Old Boy, I've played The Last of Us, I read all of "A Song of Ice and Fire" and watched the first few seasons of Game of Thrones, The Walking Dead, The Boys etc. So I can manage that level of "Disturbing" where it's still kind of mainstream and the core genre isn't necessarily horror. Stuff like Madoka, End of Evangelion and the old Fullmetal Alchemist anime I can cope with.

But I don't like stuff like Saw, Human Centipede etc. And I hate Titus Andronicus (Which at least I'm not alone in, the play is so bad some scholars have debated if Shakespeare even wrote it).

So I think we can all agree that the fate of Nina in Fullmetal Alchemist is really disturbing. It's disturbing and awful... but it's important for the story because:
1. It establishes that yes, horrible things can happen to anyone in this series. Children and cute animals are not exempt, so you should absolutely buy into the stakes here.
2. People can and do use alchemy for truly awful things in this series, and an alchemist can become so obsessed with power, status and knowledge that they destroy everything precious to them (a lesson that Ed, with his tendency towards hubris, needed to truly internalise).
3. It hints that something in that country's administration is kind of F'ed up and that alchemists are maybe not given the oversight they should... or are perhaps being nudged towards evil on purpose.
4. It clearly reinforces that anything in alchemy that seems miraculous and impossible probably had some kind of terrible price behind the scenes.

I didn't enjoy it, but I wouldn't think the series was improved without it. It was disturbing and shocking in exactly the right way and used for the right reasons, and for that reason, it's become a really memorable part of an excellent series.

Grave of the Fireflies isn't a fun movie to watch. At all. It is a harrowing experience, but that's the point. It's based on a man's real experiences as a child in postwar Japan, and it depicts the horrors of the damage done by the war, the callous disregard for human life that can come about when people are poor and desperate.

Human centipede though is like.... I don't get it? I don't get the appeal. It's like somebody had a disgusting, nonsensical idea and made it just to be disgusting? (And then tried to make up a bunch of stuff about it being a critique of fascism or something to justify making it...) I'm not interested in that. The suffering needs to have a real point and feel like it fits the message and themes the story exists to explore.

Aw man, that was such a sad and gorgeous movie! While they're not quite as pretty, 'Barefoot Gen' and 'When the Wind Blows' are in similar camps. The former was also made by a survivor of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings, with some of the visuals being taken from his memory of the aftermath. The latter being a Soviet nuclear attack on Britain, shown from the perspective of an elderly couple. They all have the same feel to them, but that's probably due to how they relate to real life events, and are meant to show how devastating their affects were.

I can't say this for everyone, but when it comes to me fiction like 'The Human Centipede' is appealing because it's pretty obvious it's just wants to be gross. (Don't know anything about the Facism thing, sounds like something a rando made up to justify their enjoyment of the movie.) If it's fake, no real people got hurt in the process, and the director is just messing around, I don't see a problem in enjoying it as something dumb. Personally I prefer the Child's Play sequels or Nightmare on Elm Street sequels in that aspect over 'The Human Centipede' because they're more hammy, or 'Tusk' (Which, if I remember right, was making fun of 'The Human Cenipede'.), but that's my general viewpoint when consuming gross or disturbing for the sake of being gross/disturbing stuff. The only question I ever ask is "Was this fun to watch/read in some compacity?", if the answer is 'yes' that's all that matters.

Of course I'm not saying this to try and convince you to enjoy that stuff, or change your viewpoint on it, I just wanted to share why I found it appealing.

I laugh while watching those gore movies becasue they're so ridiculous​:sweat_smile: The only good series are "Hostel" (it has some plot and interesting ideas) and "Man behind the sun" (based on real events, horrifying lesson about history)

I always try to keep gore/violence as realistic as possible. For example during war, a lot of brutal things happen and I want to show it because people have to understand that war isn't just "brave good guys fighting bad guys". What's more, it has to have some purpose for the plot and characters. It has to imapct the whole story, not just the reader

For me, I try not to give myself a threshold. When writing horror I feel like it's important to include stuff that makes you throw-up or scared. It can't be an enjoyable experience for the writer, it has to be uncomfortable.

I dunno if people will agree with me, but there's just something unsettling about seeing an artstyle you made or someone you've teamed-up with draw stuff you don't like to see. On a mental level, it's like seeing your child do horrible things like kicking dogs.

That said, I do plan on including some horror in That Stick Figure Isekai down the line (there's an entire storyline where I challenge myself to do bodyhorror with stick figures). But I've really been wanting to experiment with "implication horror". Ever since I saw an episode of Lupin where Goemon sliced this dude's arms, without showing it and having the camera angle being placed in a way where it's still ATTACHED to him (while having the guy cry in this real unsettling way like "this is my life now"), I was like "I want more of that".

My stories seem hopeful, but horror is a big element since being in a dark place in real life often seems hopeless, which is why it feels so great when the heroes just triumph

But for the stuff that usually scares me..., I can't stand small holes, dolls, clowns, sweet wholesome dainty women dying in the most brutal ways (Akira/GTAV) (I can take literally everyone else but this is the one group that disturbs me and I dunno WHY), death that comes out of nowhere (like characters you EXPECT to have plot armor) (for example, there was a movie my parents watched where this lady was looking into this guy's eyes and then all of a sudden she's just covered in his blood). Demons are another thing, although that's real life. In fiction I have yet to see a story where they've been portrayed in a scary fashion.

That's not really the point of When the Wind Blows. It's a film criticizing the UK government on their propaganda that would advocate for "Duck and Cover" method of dealing with nuclear bombs. The film is sort of a dark satire of a couple following all the steps of a pamphlet they used to hand out to people during the time.

Edit: I believe they have people talking about it in the BBC docu-series Animation Nation.

Btw I SERIOUSLY need to rewatch Ghibli films. I remember watching Grave of the Fireflies (the one I watched the most) as a kid hearing it was disturbing/sad and I was like ".... am I missing something? I know the context but...". I felt like a jerk for not feeling something out of it lmao.

No your not dumb, I don't know how many young people or non-UK people were aware of those things. It's still an anti-war film with a dark subject matter. They also made fun of it in the Iron Giant (which in a US example)

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Man, it's weird but for gore I can tolerate literally anything, and I mean literally anything at all but I draw the line when it comes to body waste (urine, feces, etc.) and SA/ CSA. I just can't stomach those 2 things at all despite being fairly numb to typical violence of any kind.

Nah, sometimes certain fiction just doesn't resonate with someone. It could be lack of experience leading to trouble with empathy or sympathy, maybe the imagery was too over the top for you and thought it was silly, it could have not hit right for you personally, or it could be you just see them as fictional characters. (Which they are, but some people can't put themselves in character's shoes because of that.) There's nothing wrong with you for not feeling anything.

Lol I don't know what counts as "young people" in this context, I remember seeing videos like that as a kid... I don't remember if it was seen as a legit thing, or a piece of history. Honestly though, I didn't look up 'When the Wind Blows' in any way whatsoever, and watched it at face value. So it is kinda dumb on my part since I should be putting in the effort to research, especially when I already talked about how I like researching context behind certain films.