4. Splatter Films
Splatter films are a sub genre of cult cinema that trade on graphic violence and very gory content. In recent years the term Gorno (gore and porno) has been coined to describe these films. The term 'Splatter' was first used to describe Romero's Dawn of the Dead (he came up with the title himself) however this film is also seen to be respectable in its satire and social commentary. The term Splatter suggests a lower class of film - with gore for gore's sake to shock and appal. Gore in mainstream cinema began to creep in at the late 1950s/early 1960s with the Japanese vision of Buddhist Hell - Jigoku, Hitchcock's proto-splatter Psycho and Franju's Les Yeux Sans Visage. The first film maker to really exploit gore as entertainment was Herschell Gordon Lewis who is famous for being 'The Godfather of Gore'. His films Blood Feast, 2000 Maniacs! and The Gruesome Twosome shocked drive in and grindhouse audiences with their graphic violence and gory effects. These films pioneered the way for Splatter. The Japanese are particularly adept at splatter with films such as Entrails of a Virgin, Tokyo Gore Police, Shogun's Joy of Torture, the Guinea Pig films and Grotesque. The latter has been banned by the BBFC for having no artistic purpose other than to showcase the torture and murder of its protagonists. Peter Jackson is infamous for the Splatter films he released in New Zealand - Bad Taste, Meet the Feebles and Braindead. All three were gleefully filled to the brim with splatter or 'splatstick' - the use of gore as an instrument for comedy. Other films that could qualify as 'splatstick' are Shaun of the Dead and in particular Evil Dead 2. French cinema positively embraced splatter in the New French Extremity movement. Martyrs contains some outrageous gore and painful to watch graphic violence. It is one of the hardest films you will ever sit through thanks to the splatter level contained within. Frontiers and Inside are also two French films with significant splatter. In recent years, with the Saw and Hostel franchises, splatter is becoming the norm in horror films. Sometimes it seems like horror directors are trying to out-splatter each other. Human Centipede and its sequel Human Centipede 2: Final Sequence set new barriers in the splatter world for horror directors to pass. It will be fascinating to see how Tom Six can top Human Centipede 2 in the splatter stakes when it comes to the third instalment.