Yes, I believe they were. Hitchcock, Tarantino, Scorsese, De Palma, Stephen King (I threw the author in with the filmmakers as that’s where a lot of his trash ends up). Two really interesting actors were in The Rope this morning on TCM, Jimmy Stewart and Farley Granger. The third principle John Dall just comes across as irritating. The movie was about two twits who thought they could commit the “perfect” murder for some bullshit reason or another. Stewart as ‘Rupert’ (who names their kid Rupert?) figures out their deed and summons the police in a unique way.

But my point, if there is any is: What sort of psycho spends their entire life obsessed with murder? Think about that, what sort of nut doesn’t just use it as a random plot device once or twice in a career, but wallows in it. Bathes in it. Immerses himself in it. Who does that? Women filmmakers didn’t. Films with John Wayne as an example sometimes found it necessary that the good guy would have to kill the bad guy, but the films were never about celebrating the taking of innocent life. If the good guy had to kill someone, it was for a reason. Not because he was just a sick, twisted individual. Reveling in the most heinous of human acts.

What’s going through their mind? What sort of sick caldron exists in their head? Its not normal. Its not good. Film can go one of three ways. It can seek to extol the highest good of the human existence. It can seek to be an objective recorder of human events. Or it can appeal to the dark and evil recesses of the mind. Substituting shock for skill. Reaching for the grotesque constantly doesn’t elevate film or the human experience. It simply appeals to the ‘naughty’ factor.

After sufficient exposure, it simply coarsens, and perhaps inspires sick people to commit sick crimes. I would put it on the same terms as the way pornography is destructive to the mind. That there is something called ‘violence porn‘, which is equally destructive to the soul.