PRESTIGE K/DA ALL OUT KAI'SA 2020 EDITION

That title tells you nothing.

This is a post about 'extreme' media. Extredia, if you will. Media that pushes the boundary of what is good and right for the respectable populace to consume. When do it become not respectable? Is it just edginess? Is there value in such boundary pushingness? Partly inspired by soraspace's post on disturbing stories (dories).

To start with, it's obvious that what is considered decent has evolved over the years, i hear there are ladies wearing trousers nowadays! With regards to horror movies, films that were considered violent and shocking back in day hardly rustle the jimmies of a modern viewer. Films like the Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Friday the 13th were considered bloodthirsty devil-pictures when first released, but would barely make a splash if released today. This isn't to deny their quality - the Texas Chainsaw Massacre is still a great film thanks to its expertly crafted atmosphere and pacing, and Friday the 13th is, uh, there. i love these older horror films not necessarily because they're scary - but because of the vibes, bro. Evil Dead 2, The Fly, Reanimator all rank among my favourite films of all time thanks to the timeless appeal of practical effects and entertaining (if silly at times) plot beats. While slightly younger than the films already mentioned, The Blair Witch project maintains its spook factor due to its complete unreliance on any effects or visuals to cause fear - its all about the timelessly terrifying ambulance. Army ants. Ambience.

If you've ever delved deep into internet rabbit holes you might have pursued the topic of banned films, those deemed by society to be too immoral to release to the public. One such example is Cannibal Holocaust, an Italian film that was banned due to its graphically violent sexual assault and real killing of animals - alongside suspected real killing of humans. This was facilitated by the director Ruggero Deodato claiming that the actors signed a contract to make no public appearances for a year after filming - leading for copies of the film to be seized under suspicion of snuffery just 10 days after release. This was released in the 80's, where it was far more likely that this could actually be a snuff film (snilm) and it was vastly more difficult for anyone to check the actors were actually alive. Thanks to our modern technology a stunt like this wouldn't be possible, if there was a serious concern as to an actor's wellbeing or just an inquisitive amateur detective then the ruse would be sniffed out fairly quickly.

Over here in le moderne daye, a notable example of a controversial ALL OUT film (series) are the Terrifier movies. A series of modern day slashers that follow the series mascot Art the clown on his wacky misadventures murdering people in the most violent and graphic ways possible. Now, these films are straight up about their purpose, they're slashers through and through - the story is barely a factor and it's all about the kills. While too mascot horror-y for my tastes i can appreciate the effort and imagination that has gone into these bloodsoaked spectacles, especially given the use of practical effects and OTT violence they present. Even if the goriest and most graphic kills always seem to be saved for women but that's not what this post is about. Part of what added to Terrifier 2's notoriety and controversy in particular was that test audiences were reportedly throwing up and leaving in pure fright from what they saw! But look into it a little bit and you find out that they showed an extreme horror film to a generic audience (ie, not extreme horror fans), so reactions were significantly overblown from how the intended audience would react. And there are no confirmed reports of people throwing up. So basically, lame marketing. The problem that Terrifier, as a horror film, suffers from is that it isn't scary. There is a level of violence that becomes cartoonish, and Terrifier's complete reliance on this extreme violence means everything else falls flat. This is absolutely what the films are going for, they're just not my thing. Again, too mascot horror-y.

Berserk has some extreme scenes, boobs and bodies and everything in between, but why is Berserk one of the greatest stories ever told? Because Berserk isn't about the violence, it just is violent. You've got Guts vs 100 men where you see how efficiently a big sword can dismantle 100 men, you've got Guts balls deep on the first page of the manga, you've got the Eclipse scene where nothing bad happens. This is all conveyed through Miura's astonishingly good art and storytelling, and it is indeed unfair to compare Terrifier to Berserk. They are very different things, one is a murder buffet and the other is a twelve-tier Red Velvet cake that uses demon blood as food dye.

Berserk touched on this, but what of the boobs? We've been talking about violence, but nudity and other naughty bits are an equal source of public outrage. There was a significant public outcry against GTA: San Andreas when it was discovered that there was an unused sex minigame deep in the files - accessible using the fan made Hot Coffee mod. This led to San Andreas being threatened with store-shelf-pulling while the game was rebranded as an 18+, leading Rockstar to patch out the content. Now you might wonder why sex would cause such an outcry in a street crime murder simulator, it's hardly like this was found in Paper Mario. i don't have an answer for that, society is weird. This has been seen explicitly in recent years, with the crackdown from conservative christian (i've accidentally done some alliteration here so i should end this with a word beginning with c, what one could i use to describe such people i wonder) cunts appealing to payment providers to disallow NSFW content on platforms like itch.io and steam. While already bad, a lot of LGTBQ+ content has been smeared with this brush, which is awful and sends a terrible message. While the objectification and sexualisation of women in games is a problem in the industry and a whole other post it's undeniable that lots of games have gained popularity by having characters that players really, really want to have sex with. Which, uh, has never happened in any other industry ever, and definitely isn't a huge industry in itself. Tell me the hottest videogame character you can think of, i'm just interested.

Lets quickly finish off by talking about Shock Rock. This is a genre of music that aims to shock audiences with unsavory lyrics and theatrical stage performances. A couple of my favourites are Alice Cooper and GWAR. Now, i've seen Alice Cooper live, and it was a great show. The whole thing started behind a curtain in a courtroom where the judge listed his crimes, then asked how he pleaded and he said 'GUILTY!' then cut the curtain with a sword cane and went into the first song. If you don't think that sounds awesome, then i'm sorry but you are a boring person. While watching Alice Cooper i was not remotely shocked, but audiences in the 70s and 80s were. The audacity to do and sing these sorts of things live on stage was unheard of, so a man wearing eyeshadow and decapitating himself with a fake guillotine turned heads. Over and over as they fell into the basket. The other band i mentioned, GWAR, are slightly newer than Alice Koopa, and are a bit kwazier. Their entire thing is they're a race of violent murder aliens called Scumdogs, leaving a trail of blood and depravity in their wake. While their lyrics are intentionally provocative (they've got an entire album called 'America Must Be Destroyed') the real sauce of GWAR lie in their theatrical stage performances. It's long been a staple of GWAR live shows that the audience get drenched in fake blood - so much so that it's become common practice to wear a plain white shirt to a GWAR show and come away with your own unique blood-soaked memorabilia. Along with raining blood, GWAR's members are decked out in elaborate costumes representing their character in the band's mythos. Balsac the Jaws of Death, Jizmak Da Gusha, Blothar the Berserker, among others. These characters will in turn bring representations of real actual people onto stage to be brutally murdered - notable recent examples include Elon Musk, Donald Trump and Taylor Swift. Such antics led to the band's former frontman Oderus Urungus (RIP) being arrested for obscenity in North Carolina in 1990, leading to the band's ban from the state.

So, what's the point i've been ambling towards in this terribly written post? Well, it's expressive. Art shouldn't have to be sanitised to tell a message, a lot of the time a more explicit approach works better. GWAR and Alice Cooper's theatrics make them stand out, Terrifier's ludicrously violent kills showcase morbid creativity, and a lot of people want to have sex with the cast of Overwatch. For some much better videos on extreme media check out the links below. Of course they'd be better videos than this, this is a blog post. Idiot.