Spectre , Kingsman , and Minions are three movies that prove that the use of subtle violence in a film scene is actually more disturbing than the traditional blood and guts. This finding should be a cautionary tale for HBO’s Game of Thrones which is notorious for the of use graphic violence as a scare tactic. The new finding reveals that violence, after all, is cathartic.
To illustrate, it is most likely the excessive use of gore in most films that has brought about an audience shift in the perception of violence. If this were so, then subtle violence is the new scare tactic. And thanks to films like the James Bond flick Spectre , Kingsman: The Secret Service and Universal Studios’ Minions , violence-by-imagination could be saving filmmakers tons of cash by economizing on the use of special effects to convey mayhem on screen.
Not that Ketchup is in short supply or more expensive than diamonds, but sometimes showing death or torture can call for an elaborate system of props or some advanced technology. According to The Guardian , the latest James Bond epic, Spectre , is 2015’s most complained about movie, judging from forty viewer complaints lodged with the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC).
Spectre generated the most complaints to the BBFC in 2015, followed by Kingsman: The Secret Service and Minions. https://t.co/ve6rQ43hM2
— BBC News Entertainment (@BBCNewsEnts) July 1, 2016
[ Warning: Spoiler Ahead for Spectre , Kingsman , and Minions ]
Surprisingly, these forty complaints stemmed from two scenes in the James Bond movie that supposedly show a torture scene, although not much is actually being shown as time lapses and there is no graphic scenery either. The first scene has to do with the James Bond villain Mr. Hinx banging the head of a mercenary applicant on the conference table and then subsequently appearing to gouge the man’s eyes out although no blood is actually shown. In the second scene, James Bond himself, played by Daniel Craig, is about to get a peculiar type of lobotomy and does, but then again, no blood is depicted.
You would expect that audiences would probably complain more about the bombing incident in the Spectre movie — but they actually don’t. In Kingsman: The Secret Service , the audience is more predictable. Why the audience’s 38 complaints to the BBFC center on the violence used by Kingsman in the church fight scene — with the exception of what ITV describes as “an unexpected and crude sex reference , which was intended to be funny.”
I just watched Kingsman: The Secret Service (2015) https://t.co/zfK8AsUFlp #trakt
— HHQ (@henchmanc) June 26, 2016
However, when we turn to Minions , it’s Spectre all over again with the audience reacting more fearfully to the scene where the minions are about to be tortured in a medieval chamber. Additionally, the 16 complaints against Minions show that anticipation is actually what “kills” the moviegoing public. After all, the torture actually doesn’t happen as the loveable yellow cartoon characters escape in a big, funny way.
So here’s a tip to the producers of Game of Thrones , the ultra-popular cable TV series known the world over for graphically depicting beheadings and other types of mutilations. Next time around, be a little more subtle as the audience seems to be growing tired of graphic renditions. Actually, the series might already be familiar with this technique. To illustrate, in one episode where the scene is Reek gets spayed, HBO has been smart enough to skip showing that part.
Instead, the episode moves forward to a scene where Ramsay is enjoying a delicious meal of frankfurters, which is actually a way of poking fun at the violence. Nevertheless, Spectre and Minions will go down in 2015 history as the flicks with the biggest number of bad points for portraying imagined, rather than actual violence on screen. Kingsman , next edition, meanwhile, might want to tone down actual violence and opt for a balance as imagined violence is the new gore. After all, a balance may well be what the audience is looking for and this just might save filmmakers from future BBFC scoldings.
[Photo by Adam Berry/Getty Images]
