Implied gore often better than seeing gore...In my opinion.

If there is gore, they had better make it good! Even though that genre isn't my thing, I do enjoy the Hostel and SAW movies.

 

In the movie Wonderland, which is about John Holmes' involvement with some small time criminals and their revenge fueled deaths, the murders in the house on Wonderland Ave are heard rather than seen. It's a brilliantly intense scene that you never forget the implied violence of.

In the Peter Jackson movie Dead Alive (Braindead), like the Evil Dead movies, the gore is so over the top that it's humorous.

It's the gore that "disturbing" movie fans seek out that I don't care for, such as in the movie Myrtyrs; which I could not finish.

So I guess for me, implied gore and over the top, humorous gore is more tolerable, and more effective, than gore that tries to be in your face with it's reality.

 

The reason you don't forget it is because Holmes, played by Val Kilmer if I remember correctly, is shown in one of the several dramatizations of what happened with a facial expression that can only be described as some sort of sickening bliss. I've pretty much forgotten everything else about that movie.

 

Dude, imply him -- don't let us see him!

 

I think it all depends on the type of movie itself. For example, if I'm watching a Fulci flick, or something like Hostel or Saw, then yeah I want to see blood & guts... the more entrails and viscera flying everywhere, the better! But at the same time, some movies can be just as (if not more) effective by showing very little, or even nothing at all. As a few people have already pointed out, the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre manages to be very creepy and disturbing, even though there's hardly a drop of blood on screen. And my own personal choice for "scariest movie of all time", Blair Witch Project, is a film in which you see absolutely nothing at all... everything is left to your imagination.

 

There was really just "that one scene" that was gory.... but man, was it a doozy!

 

Sorry. I'll put him back in my... lockbox.

 

Among my favorite bits of implied gore. The fact that Indy has to turn away from it, and then the blood spattering on the tail... No special effects artist could match the horrific image this creates in my mind.

 

I remember that one of the home intruders makes the motion of hitting someone, in bed, with a pipe that you never see make contact but you hear someone else in the house being hit with a pipe over and over and over.... and over again, in the background.

 

It occurs to me that one would come up with similar comments if, in the thread title, you replace the word 'gore' with the word 'sex'. Interesting.

 

How about the airplane splatter scene in "Catch 22"?
I won't post it here as this is a family friendly forum.

 

That scene in Fargo where the killer enters an office block ànd wastes multiple dudes, but the camera just tracks room to room from outside. No gore, very effective.

That scene in Alien where the beastie bursts out of John Hurt's chest. Lotsa gore, very effective.

--Geoff

 

On a budget, it's the way to go.