Too Bloody

Rating: 2/10 (12 December 2007)

I'm not against blood and violence in and of itself, but the amount of blood and the overly-long visual of the first kill in this movie were much more than necessary to contribute to the story. Gratuitous blood and violence is just disturbing and gory, and takes away from the movie. I had to look away several times. And I've had no problem with such movies as 'Saving Private Ryan,' with its considerable amount of death and dismemberment. Leaving detail and length of a killing to the imagination can be much more scary and conducive to setting a mood or developing a character, without just grossing out the audience. At the end of the movie during the screening I saw, the audience was just silent; probably in shock at the level of gore.
And this was unfortunate since the acting and singing were otherwise quite good, but instead of appreciating these positive aspects, I keep thinking about the gore. Lowering the blood level by 80% would probably have increased by vote to a 7 or 8.