Things that make you go ewww...

Miss Snark had a post a while back where she asked what in a book makes you go ewww. I think between books and movies, there are three broad categories of things that will always turn me off: Serial killers, child abuse (particularly sexual abuse), and talking animals. I occasionally like things which deal with these subjects, but they have to be truly exceptional.

For instance, serial killers. Didn't like Silence of the Lambs or Red Dragon or, god forbid, The Cell. I like aspects of them; the acting might be good or in the case of The Cell the visuals are amazing, but I can't ger around the whole serial killer thing. People who like these sorts of things usually tell me they like them because they are curious about what makes serial killers tick. I guess I'm more interested in what makes normal folks tick than the rare extreme deviant from norm.

My exception in this category... can you guess? It's Seven. Why? I've asked myself this question a lot, because my distate for serial killer movies and my love of this particular film are proportional. I think it's a few things. First, this film is really more about Morgan Freeman and is relationship to life in the city than it is about serial killers. And Morgan Freeman rocks. Second, you never see the murders or the victims before they've been killed. There is no vicarious "thrill" watching some clueless chick who's about to get it. There are no scenes of actresses screaming or just being terrified. In particular, we neve see the scene where he gets Gwyneth. Granted, that's mostly for reasons of "what's in the box" suspense, but I can see a lot of writers or directors wanting to use it as an after-the-fact flashback or even intercutting it with the final scene. We never even see her head in the box; it's all implied. So kudos to David Fincher for not going there. The stalking and killing are so incidental to the plot the serial killer himself has no scenes until the very end of the film. And I love the way Spacey played him; he does not radiate evil. He's just this guy.

I can't think of any examples of abuse that I liked unless you include Lolita. I was expecting to hate that book but was quite entranced. I'd give the Kubrick movie a B.

The third category, talking animals, is pretty far afield from the first two, I'll admit. But it's the one that bugs me the most. Bambi, the Lion King, etc. etc. I just can't stand it; I don't know why. But there are probably more exceptions to this rule. Finding Nemo was great, and I enjoyed A Bug's Life as well. I loved Babe, although to me that's really a movie about a laconic farmer. I very nearly never saw this film because the annoying singing mice were so prominently featured in the previews and ads I was sure I would hate it. I do hate the mice, but the movie is good.

On a related note, here is a link to animals that don't talk: Garfield cartoons where all the dialogue except Jon's has been deleted. Now it's a sad tale of a desperately lonely man and his pets. Warning, the site tends to exceed it's bandwidth so you might have to try it more than once to actually get there.