10 Deadly Sins Committed By Most Films

4. Wrath

Horror films have been around for a long time, but with the advent of special effects and CGI, movies sure have gotten a lot more violent, and not only more violent, but there is a lot more gore, gross out humor, and sex (sometimes real) in current films. At risk of sounding like a prude priest, I'll go on record and say that there is too much graphic depicting of well... everything. I'm not against violence or gore in films; I'm a little hesitant to say the same about sex scenes because it's hard to look past the surface of sex scenes, but that will be addressed in our next sin. For now, let's focus on violence and gore in films. Violence and gore were never exclusive to slasher flicks, but war and action movies also portray some gruesome acts of violence and we would call this realistic. War was bloody and people died in horrible fashion, but it gets a bit fuzzier when we come to action movies. Action films use violence and gore to attract audiences; much like grindhouse pictures in the '70s, many movies today attract audiences with violence. Why? Because it looks cool. I grew up on action flicks: Steven Seagal breaking people's necks, Chuck Norris back spin kicking everyone in the jaw, Arnold and Sly shooting everyone up - it was a good time. As I got older, the movies got more grotesque with an increasing amount of graphic stabbings, gun shot wounds, broken limbs etc. There was so much wrath - and for what? To make us pay $10 to see Sly machine gun a guy to pieces? Let's get to the sin of it: the obvious sin is Hollywood attracting the masses with cheap thrills and chills without caring much for anything else except money, but I think the sin goes deeper. The sin is most films that have these violent scenes condition the audience to enjoy these scenes and not much else. What was the story about? Doesn't matter, because I saw Jason Statham kick another dude's head off. Fantastic. I saw a couple of Indonesian action films that boasted intense action with a decent story: Merantau and The Raid. Both films featured the martial art of silat and the choreography was no joke - it was entertaining, brutal, but graceful at the same time. In fact, the only reason why I watched these films was because of the buzz the action sequences were getting. I'm conditioned as well, it seems, but I found myself being drawn into the story and at the end of both films - Merantau more than The Raid - I was moved. The point being this: action attracts, but story keeps.