Our readers submitted some very good comments this week, with some interesting substantive discussion. The best, I think, was the following, from R. J. MacReady, commenting on slasher films:

Your point about making the audience complicit in the inhumanity of the killer’s conduct is very astute. It reminds me of Hostel. That movie is structured to do basically the same thing. The first half of the movie focuses on debauchery and de-humanizing sex. It’s the kind of titillation we expect in horror movies, and it’s shot in a way comforts us in the familiarity of the exploitation. Then, about half way through, it turns that objectification on the heroes of the movie. Demonstrating the slippery slope from meaningless sex to fetishism to extreme degredation and finally torture and death.

The movie has its flaws, but in the end, it’s holding up a mirror to the audience (just as you posit Friday the 13th did) to show them that THIS is where the road they are on leads. This is what objectification does. And it makes the audience ask themselves, would YOU like to be dehumanized?

Those that aren’t too busy shouting, "DUDE! CHAINSAW!" anway.

Sadly, just like Friday the 13th, it has given rise to numerous lesser imitations (not to imply that it’s great, just noting its relative superiority) that become more and more exploitative the farther they get from the original. While it’s responsible for the "torture porn" genre, it is a cut above, so to speak.

I think R. J. MacReady’s point is well taken: what we take in through the senses, like what we eat, can either nourish us or poison us. It is up to each of us to choose wisely, and that includes knowing what we’re consuming.