I'm not a fan of torture porn, I'll say that straight up. I have largely avoided the whole phenomenon, as I am a bit of a wimp. With this one I slipped up, mostly because it comes disguised as a dark romantic comedy. It is funny and quirky, disgusting and disturbing in equal measure.
Mixing genres is both fun and innovative, as long as one simply rule is followed: it must be cohesive. The viewer can go from laughing one minute to crying the next (see Futurama episode "Jurassic Bark"), but not if the change comes out of nowhere. In Must Love Death the change from comedy to horror is incredibly jarring and it took me, for one, out of the moment.
Comedy and horror usually go together like peanut and chocolate, but in this film it just left a sloppy mess. I adore dark comedy, but the element of torture porn just made the laughter stop. I can imagine torture porn fans would be equally disappointed, because half the film really is devoted to a dark romantic comedy. This film could have worked. At first I wanted it to work, but beyond the halfway point I just started wanting it to end instead.
Mixing genres is both fun and innovative, as long as one simply rule is followed: it must be cohesive. The viewer can go from laughing one minute to crying the next (see Futurama episode "Jurassic Bark"), but not if the change comes out of nowhere. In Must Love Death the change from comedy to horror is incredibly jarring and it took me, for one, out of the moment.
Comedy and horror usually go together like peanut and chocolate, but in this film it just left a sloppy mess. I adore dark comedy, but the element of torture porn just made the laughter stop. I can imagine torture porn fans would be equally disappointed, because half the film really is devoted to a dark romantic comedy. This film could have worked. At first I wanted it to work, but beyond the halfway point I just started wanting it to end instead.