All of this "...that's because you haven't seen..." circle-jerking is just going to end up with some poor kid wandering in from the LP forums and watching SALO and then we'll all feel bad for what we've done.
It's possible I'm not as squeamish as I think I am. I was sort of half-tricked into watching Audition - the dude who used to run the local video store pressed it into my hand the day he got it, saying "Do not look at the back of the cover - just go home and watch it" - so I watched it completely cold. Had somebody described the movie, or had I read about it previously, I probably wouldn't have seen it at all. So it's possible that I could watch Martyrs or, I don't know, A Serbian Film and be fine. But I've read about them too much, and now they're blocked in my mind. Also, I now realize Audition is twelve years old, and I had a stronger stomach twelve years ago. Intent and theme also factor in. I freely admit that I don't mind the idea of... well, spoilers just in case here ... nearly as much as watching teenage girls get maimed. Perhaps that makes me a reverse sexist or something, but there it is.
Some things you can't unsee For the record, I voted for Big Trouble in Little China (although I was introduced to it via TBS and USA showing the shit out of it) simply because I find it the most entertaining. That's not to say that The Thing isn't a very good movie (it is, and I'll watch it when it's on) or that I don't also like They Live (behold the miracle of the back alley suplex). I can only pick one though!
Not to make this all political, but THEY LIVE totally gets extra double brownie points for all of the socially, culturally and politically super-unaware Tea Partiers that use clips, quotes, images and soundbytes from the film against Obama/the Democrats at large, completely unironically and without one single iota of awareness of the dissonance of doing so, as if they have no idea that it was an anti-Reaganism picture or that it was even made during the 80s at all.
Considering that's the same party that thought Springsteen's "Born In The USA" was a jingoistic chant for US awesomeness, that's just par for the course really.
The Tea Party: For When John Carpenter Movies and Bruce Springsteen Lyrics Are Too High-brow And Subtle
