Quoted from Scar Tissue Films For some reason Western filmmakers dispense with character, theme, depth and just throw cheap scares at you. They treat their material like a throwaway joke, so that's what it becomes.

Your point was brought up with MC's Pagan Edition, of which I took note.
http://www.simplyscripts.net/cgi-bin/Blah/Blah.pl?b-RadioSimply/m-1286499940/

Do you guys think the ROW will eventually catch up to US/Western gore-porn-4-thrills (I think we're just culturally overstimulated by real life, leaving emotional subtlety a lost cause) and where do we go from here?

I know where you're coming from and I definitley agree that it's imperative to create those openings that allow you to make those memorable scenes.

One thing: I don't reckon things even necessarily have to make much sense to work. I think that's a very western thing, everything has to have a reason.

One of the films I mentioned above, Uzumaki, is about spirals haunting a village. Spiral patterns...not the first thing that comes to mind with horror.

Doesn't make a lick of sense really and they leave it completely ambiguous as to what it was, but that's part of the charm.

When you think about it, part of the allure of the supernmatural is the unkown and the paradox of life...seems strange that we feel the need to explain it all in the West.

Yep, I hear you, too, Rick.  But for me, things need to make sense.  Things have to have a reason.  When they don't, or they just downright don't make sense, I have serious problems.  Guess it's just my nature.

Quoted from RayW Your point was brought up with MC's Pagan Edition, of which I took note. http://www.simplyscripts.net/cgi-bin/Blah/Blah.pl?b-RadioSimply/m-1286499940/ Do you guys think the ROW will eventually catch up to US/Western gore-porn-4-thrills (I think we're just culturally overstimulated by real life, leaving emotional subtlety a lost cause) and where do we go from here?

The Japanese in particular are not averse to some pretty severe sadism in their films. Culturally I've heard it said that because Japan has been historically a repressive society, their Art has often been extreme.

I really don't know enough about Eastern Cinema to say more than that. Maybe someone can find an expert on Chinese Cinema for a Simply Radio?

As for where we go....honestly, I don't know. I really don't think Jeff is far off when he said that the whole system is a mess. Just a few companies own everything from the top down and they are very conservative and very domineering.

Maybe I'm being defeatist, but I get the impression that someone who wrote a breathtakingly original horror script would end up doing re-writes on Halloween 3 and the script would end up in permanent residence in some vault,

But if a group of people managed to get together, make some really powerful stuff, found a way to get it to a large audience...there's always a way.

Quoted from RayW ...and where do we go from here?

Firstly, I think it is important to start tackling the problem at the roots, in much the same way we would eliminate overgrown weeds from a vegetable patch.

One of us needs to kidnap Eli Roth, take him to a remote cabin deep in the forest and cut his nuts off with a rusty fork.

Eli is not the problem!

Eli showed that great, unique, genre defining horror can still be made and even made on the cheap.

Beyond horrible.  Beyond the realm of remote bad taste even.  This movie was a huge exercise in pointless film making.  Why make this film?  Who will get anything out of this?  This, not unlike "last House" & "I Spit", is the reason why people think it's acceptable to push limits for the sake of pushing them rather than for a point or for effect.  Eli Roth, Jew to Jew here, I'm looking at you.

Nothing here spoke to me.  The acting was laughable on the girls part -- Loved how the wipers are on in the car, yet there is no rain.  Loved when the tire blows, car is soaked, yet road is not.  Loved how everything was too conveniently placed and set up too.  The only scene I found compelling was the pool scene with the blood.  And not because it was a huge part of the film, rather how it seemed kind of real; unlike the rest of the film.

Statement - "Movie sucked... What can I say"?

Reiteration - "Well I don't see you doing anything better".

Interjection - "Because I don't make movies, I write them".

Resolve - "Oh, well... um...um... Paper Plates are on sale at the Dollar-Tree for 50 cents today, and today only".

Resolve(2) - "I'm there, man.  Let's make a day of it".

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The above was a pointless venture I took whoever wanted to read it on... Much like the director chose to do to me when I watched his movie (The Human Centipede)