Ever since God said to Abraham, "Sacrifice your son for me. But first, pull my finger", there's been Gross-out Humor. It seemed to really take the film industry by storm in the late 90s and early 00s, and even though I was a teenager at the time, the subgenre didn't really capture my imagination; I felt like a prude but I never found them funny enough - perhaps because I never found them gross enough. 1998's Happiness and most of Todd Solondz's movies hit the mark for me in terms of achieving both Gross and Comedy in a much less juvenile way than the Farrellys or the Wayanses, and with much more filmmaking prowess than John Waters. I'd go as far to say that his particular formula of irony and satire is unique to any other storyteller I've ever been aware of; his ability to make lite of dark subject matter is even that much more magnified when he presents it seriously. And it's that serious darkness that makes a difference.
The grossest stuff is usually the psychological stuff; the sprays and projectiles and overall dampness is good for a giggle and a gasp but it's the stuff that stays with me and ultimately depresses me that I find most disgusting. But they don't call that "disgusting" they call it "disturbing" because, clearly, the grossness comes in columns. This is the stuff that's the least fun to watch, and particularly rewatch; sexual assault, animal stuff, kid stuff, nonfiction horrors - they all leave a completely different taste than something like Re-Animator or Scanners. For my own fancy, if you can make it as fun or exciting or interesting as one of those Horror or Science Fiction extravaganzas then I'm more likely to hold it in higher regard and come back again. Last House on the Left sucks so I'm not worried about it. I Spit On Your Grave is clumsily confrontational even for a revenge flick. Irreversible is too grim. Man Bites Dog is too dumb. The quantifier is "fun" I think, and fun is just as relatable as "gross". Clockwork Orange is fun. Devil's Rejects, Deliverance, Cape Fear, all fun and interesting and exciting to me. I've still completely kept my distance from Come and See but my impartial observation has me curious as to whether or not I'd watch it as often and as casually as Schindler's List -- though that just may be the magic (or misjudgment) of Spielberg.
Violence is the big one I think - more than slime or barf or fantastical body horror; "gore" is typically what most people think of when they think of gross. But with violence it's a lot easier (and more socially acceptable) to differentiate between "fun" and "serious". The earliest (and most extreme) example of my own is watching The Black Knight scene in Monty Python and the Holy Grail when I was like 3 years old and even then being initially shocked at how blatantly vulgar it was and then sort of being helped along to realize the comedy of it. Like I said that's an extreme example because that's a legit straightforward Comedy, but it's the movies that rest on Violence and find ways to be cute with it that are, for every single intent and purpose, the "fun" ones (critics could not grasp this during the Slasher boom). Only until recently it seemed like Quentin's entire career was just a series of him "answering for" whatever new plague he'd unleashed on social mores - and that's only because he was making Crime movies as opposed to those ridiculous Horror flicks. Though I've always said that Casino is the most violent movie I've seen, because while it's not Dead Alive or Hellraiser it stabs that much deeper since it's presented (and rooted) in reality. Even all the torture porn stuff barely slides by because, no matter how realistic it comes across, they can't escape that stigma of camp; the literal tagline for The Human Centipede is: "100% Medically Accurate", as if to say "please, this would be so much more effective if you ignore how ridiculous it is". But that's the irony: the New French Extremity movement and the J-Horror stuff take themselves so seriously that they left out the goddamn fun. But are they gross?
Actually, I'd argue that real grossness maintains an air of burlesque and that maybe nothing can be truly serious when you got heads rollin' around. When I was little the throw up in The Exorcist was one of its most traumatizing tricks - when I look at it now it feels a bit like the punchline in an otherwise humorless atmosphere. But it's definitely gross. All puking is gross, and it was particularly startling as a child because of how traumatic it was whenever it happened to me in real life; I was too terrified to get through Stand By Me because of the barf-o-rama sequence - I was phobic of vomit stuff. My mother thought the grossest part of The Exorcist was the electroencephalography scene where they stab Regan in the neck and take pictures of her brain. Apart from the weird food and heart extractions I can't stand Temple of Doom in part because of the room full of bugs. My father doesn't like Raiders because of the snakes. There are literally still folks who won't watch Brokeback Mountain. Point is, people's phobias, however irrational, can determine their level of loathsomeness in fiction - not because they're scary, but because "ew".
There are a hundred other avenues for means and moods of repulsion and I've certainly overthought them all - a lotta Comic Book movies make me woozy, but even the most nuanced list should maintain some comprehensive motif; leaving out bad CGI, misguided politics, weak humor, and all the other stuff that makes us sick, and focusing entirely on the intentionally gross entertainment. We like gross, but how far can you take it and still have a good time? Confronting this idea as I am right now, it helped me to realize that I've always found that perfect balance in the Italian Horror Cinema of the 1970s and 1980s.
One could argue that's a genre all unto itself and one I love for many reasons, and one of the reasons is their confrontational violence. Therein lies the argument that was being made during that specific era of Horror: while these were never played as straight Comedy, the gore was so aggressively graphic that it would've been foolish to take it seriously. And it's the stability of that mix that fills me with the giddiness that's sought after when we purposefully subject ourselves to the ick. So following that formula and sidestepping the phony yardstick of "Most Disgusting" I can say that my favorite Gross-out Flick is 1980's City of the Living Dead.
"Shock Value" is only a dirty phrase when it's accompanied by laziness. Of the many reasons Lucio Fulci's inaugural entry in his "Gates of Hell" Trilogy (followed by The Beyond and House by the Cemetery, both in 1981) is one of my favorite movies of all time, one that's high on the list is its inventiveness in its filth. The movie is an unbroken parade of set pieces and while much of it is a showcase of ungodly violence, there's also a lotta muck and bugs and generalized goo - proving that you can maintain an old-fashioned spooky atmosphere in the face of blood & guts. Another thing about these older splatter movies is the practical effects wizardry and how its excellence (and sometimes incompetence) is just enough of a distraction to save the subject matter from becoming legitimately distressing - as if to remind you "it's only a movie..." It truly takes some kinda talent to find a way to repel while simultaneously attract; I find most attempts to be either too weak or too heavy-handed for me to revisit. The blend in City of the Living Dead is just the right amount of goofy and grotesque for me to wince just as much during the 100th viewing as I did the first.
- Paul
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