Bones Be Spread!

[the_jimmy_james]

What is it with 50s space-menace movies? Everybody got turned into skeletons.

 

[Dr. Bill Kobb]

It won't put you anywhere closer to an answer, but, if you haven't already seen it, this loving homage to bad 50's/60's sci-fi is mandatory viewing.

 

[Rox_My_Sox1]

What is it with space horror movies? Simple. They're HORROR movies. They don't do anything other than give you a feeling of suspense. No plot. No comedy. No tears of joy or tragedy. No good action with heroes. Just fright. A waste of time in my own personal option but eh, your cable bill.

 

[Inverse]

Alien could be considered such a thing and it flies in the face of all of that kind of criticism~ but then again, it's more of a thriller... but semantics. <3

 

[Dr. Bill Kobb]

And we're still nowhere closer to figuring out how come everyone in 50's space menace movies got turned into skeletons. Someone brew some coffee. We're likely to be here awhile...

Personally? I'm craaazy about that movie era. Right as we were on the verge of actually making it into space, those doubts arose. What if we DO find life out there, and we wind up wishing we hadn't? Same with the science of the era. Questions about the dangers of nuclear radiation, and of tampering with nature came into play. Lot's of fantastic imaginative fodder for horror movies. Kind of brought the monsters out of the crypt and into the daylight, if you will.

And, Alien is my all-time favorite horror movie. Really!

 

[Violetta]

I think the skeletons might come from the inability to broadly distribute films with a lot of gore back then. You can show a clean pile of bones with no problem, but entrails... well, those were usually frowned upon. And in some cases the skeleton could be considered even scarier. If you stumble across that then suddenly you know you're faced with some unknown that'll strip bones clean!

Or someone rode on Mr. Bonestripper. It can be hard to tell.

 

[FeatherDaemon1]

Well back in the 50's movies were still produced under the constraints of the Hollywood Production Code. It wasn't abandoned until 1968 in favor of the ratings system. The Comics Code Authority which was loosely based on the Hollywood Production Code was pretty damn strict in what could be depicted and what couldn't. In the 20's and 30's mass media was just starting to get rolling and it was pretty free-wheeling, but general society really wasn't ready for it and there was a negative reaction. So you had all your state and federal censorship boards established. It was damn near impossible to work around them. So you get skeletons instead of mangled corpses.

Here is the listing of CCA prohibitions: http://www.comicartville.com/comicscode.htm

It is pretty brutal by today's standards.

 

[Dr. Bill Kobb]

There's something to be said for not always graphically showing everything in a horror movie. Let's the viewer form their own idea of what the gruesome scenes might look like. Sometimes, our own imaginations do a better job of scaring the crap out of us than some f/x guy's idea of what things might look like.

But, I think they'll just keep upping the ante - seeing how much blood & guts the public is willing to absorb on screen. I've always found that weird about my country: We'll show you violence in a heartbeat, but show one naked breast and everybody goes apeshit.

 

[kopfhorer1]

...I've always found that weird about my country: We'll show you violence in a heartbeat, but show one naked breast and everybody goes apeshit.

Don't. Even. Get. Me. Started.

Actually, people who fear and despise pleasure but love violence (the almost inevitable result of sexual maladjustment) make better soldiers, don't they?

 

[Rox_My_Sox1]

Don't. Even. Get. Me. Started.

Actually, people who fear and despise pleasure but love violence (the almost inevitable result of sexual maladjustment) make better soldiers, don't they?

We'll show you endless commercials of SAW...a movie about a psychotic murderer who tortures his victims to death...but HEAVEN FORBID we show Janet Jackson's left boob! 😉