Some clod over at the blog for The New Republic has anointed M. Night Shyamalan’s The Happening “The Most Morally Abhorrent Film Ever Made,” on account of the fact that it posits that “the mere existence of the human race is a cause for great shame.”
I haven’t seen the film, but if I recall my philosophy classes correctly, the above proposition is more a matter of moral negation than moral abhorrence. Maybe. Whatever. Still, I, and thou, and all other occasional-or-not connoisseurs of what we’ll term less-than-above-board genre films should take Mr. James Kirchick’s mildly hysterical pronunciation to heart. Just think of all the other movies now off the hook! (For one thing, Roger Kimball will have to look into giving up his mendacious attacks on L’Age d’Or !)
Should I find myself in a frame of mind to check out Cannibal Holocaust or Avere vent’anni, I can do so with the intellectual confidence that, hey, it’s not that bad. Should My Lovely Wife enter the room during the harrowing denoument of the latter film, involving a thick tree branch and an upside-down naked woman, and express her entirely understandable repellence, I can just shrug and say, “You know, it’s not as bad as The Happening.” Sweet.
Part of me wants to send this guy the Ilsa series of turkeys. Why just say there’s an argument that the human race is morally abhorrent when you can prove it!
It’s funny you’d mention “Cannibal Holocaust” or “Avere vent’anni.” I watched them both for the first time within a period of a month late last year, so I must really be in line for hell. The New Republic writer should check out “Who Can Kill a Child?,” “Caligula” or “I Spit on Your Grave.”