Step up to this month’s VS debate, in which we pit two writers head to head on a hot button topic. In this edition, we tackle the long-held belief that a PG rating signals the death knell for any horror movie. Two fans enter the ring to battle it out…
Should horror be an exclusively R-rated genre?
In the first corner, BENOIT BLACK argues yes, since “true horror is only possible in the deep, dark territory of cinema without boundaries, rules or restraint.”
Against him JACOB TRUSSELL argues no, stating that “the arbitrary confines that the MPAA puts upon the genre do not define it.”
Read both arguments in their entirety in the latest issue of RUE MORGUE #182, now available, and cast your vote below!
The winner will be declared in the July/August issue of RUE MORGUE (#183), on stands everywhere July 1, 2018!
This is only a question if you define horror films as being about blood and guts, which I don’t. Some of my all time favourite horror films have a PG-13 rating or lower. If a horror film works for you, it shouldn’t matter what the rating is.
I have to side with no. I feel as though no movie should be made with the MPAA rating system in mind, especially horror. These movies are supposed to make you squirm, but when the rating system comes into play things get twisted. Things get cut to get a better rating to increase viewership. It very quickly becomes less about the story, less about the artistic vision. And more about how many theaters it will be allowed to play in if it was rated better. I think the entire system need to be looked at. Why should a nc-17 movie be forced into a limited release. Why should a movie push to get an R or a PG-13 rating. Why not make the movie you set out to make, then just properly inform all those sensitive people what they are getting into when the come to see whatever it is you created. I’m not saying the rating system is necessarily wrong, I think the negative stigma surrounding certain levels of the rating system needs to be re-evaluated.
I love Rue Morgue, but this is an idiotic poll and ditto for the accompanying debate in the new issue. Saying “real horror” must be violent, graphic or “extreme” is like saying food is only good if it uses hot peppers. Suggestion and subtlety are not just the domain of kid flicks. Even Jacob Trussell’s argument against the shallow suggestion doesn’t really argue strongly enough for the diversity of horror as a genre. Oh, by the way, the test of a great horror movie isn’t even if it actually scares you…let alone scars you, as Black seems to argue. Some horror is meant to frighten, some is meant to use the conventions of the form to explore other themes or issues, and some are simply meant to create a haunting atmosphere that plays in your mind. If you can’t appreciate the mastery of Dreyer’s “Vampyr,” Val Lewton’s subversive B movies of the ’40s, or a classy modern gothic like “The Woman in Black,” because they don’t shock or make you wince…well, that’s a real loss for you. I would say those who support Black’s thesis are not really fans of the genre…just one thin slice of it.