MovieChat Forums > War of the Worlds (1988) Discussion > This show is brutal...

This show is brutal...

posted 19 years ago by dsp100252-1
18 replies | jump to latest

I know I'm a late-comer, but I bought the DVD set and just finished watching the first season. Is anyone else surprised by how brutal this series was? I don't mean the gore necessarily, just more the psychological aspect to it. The one that stands out most in my mind is when the aliens made the drug to make people ultra-violent and they test it on that cop. They then throw in the woman he had befriended earlier who is happy to see him and worried something bad happened to him, and bam he just breaks her neck like that?

Not just there either, it's all over the series. There's that kid from the second episode, whose entire family got taken over and he tries to get help from the car full of nuns (who just laugh back) and we never find out what happened to him! The baby hybrid who is reborn to a full human and given to the grandparents, only it turns out they're aliens too! And then there's the constant kidnapping and storing of humans as test subjects and body reservations that is eerily reminiscent of Nazi death camps (don't think that analogy is too far off, Harrison even mentions them as the last time humanity has seen such brutality).

Yeah, I know a lot of it is tongue-in-cheek black humor, but I am very hard pressed to think of a non-cable tv show that has gone to this level. Certainly none have had the same amount of gore in it. Closest comparison I can think of is Tales from the Crypt which of course was an HBO show. Anyways, I'm not expecting much of a response since this board seems dead, but just thought I'd put my two cents in.

To Life Immortal and all that jazz...
~Kelly

[–] lmb100 19 years ago

Well yes that's why we like it. I don't think it's black humor, at least not most of it. It's very straight-out brutal in a comic book style. The show had an uncompromising style, extraordinary on television.

[–] dsp100252-1 19 years ago

Don't get me wrong, that's part of what I like about it. Funny thing is, I've always had this unnatural fear of a loved one snapping my neck. Now that I've rewatched the series, I think that the drug episode I described in OT was where I got that fear from (last time I saw it was when I was eight years old). I do know that the leg getting ripped off the candy striper was something that stuck with me my whole life. LOL in the words of Cartman, "this show has warped my fragile little mind"

[–] dsp100252-1 19 years ago

Okay, this board is real dead, are there any active boards oustide of IMDB about WOTW series?

[–] Snusmumrikken 19 years ago

It was good that this tv-series was violent, that`s one of the reasons i bought the first season. Not every ep was gory, just some.

"Uh-oh hotdog" Bobby Lee
Mad Tv

[–] 19 years ago

[deleted]

[–] Little_Korean 18 years ago

I remember getting freaked out by watching the series as a kid...and of course, crawling back downstairs at night when my folks were asleep to watch the next ep (ah, the memories).

I think what scared me, more than the grisly eps like the baby and brain-collecting ones, were how ruthless the show was to the extras. Some likeable poor scmuck would wander into the story, and through no fault of his or her own, would be killed, and often in the most brutal ways. A big departure from the other shows and sci-series of the time, where if a character bought it, he or she had probably done something to deserve it, if only by way of being a jerk. No such sentiements here.

All of which helped show how these aliens HAD to be stopped

When darkness overcomes the heart, Lil' Slugger appears...

[–] Jasons_Argonaut 18 years ago

"how ruthless the show was to the extras. Some likeable poor scmuck would wander into the story, and through no fault of his or her own, would be killed, and often in the most brutal ways" ... You touch upon a great point, for I too was always bothered back in the day concerning the likable characters who were innocent, yet always met tragic and horrific fates. Even small babies weren't safe! I still get angry over the lady Harrison fell in love with, the one that the aliens abducted for their experiments in the end. Always unhappy endings.

[–] lmb100 18 years ago

And that's why you like it and talk about it after 20+ years. Or one of the reasons. Random violence. Just like real life.

[–] Little_Korean 18 years ago

Not that the violence was random but that it took no account of whether the victim deserved it or was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.

I was at the time accustomed to shows/films where ppl only died after being established as jerks (and thus not worthy of our sympathy) or as part of a noble self-sacrifice.

And it wasn't the only reason I liked the show, but it definately stuck out partly because of it.

When darkness overcomes the heart, Lil' Slugger appears...

[–] Jasons_Argonaut 18 years ago

"And that's why you like it and talk about it after 20+ years" ... Yep! People can say what they will, but the show most definitely dared to be different!

[–] intrepidjournalist 18 years ago

I still remember the episode where the microbiologist lady's friend (a college student) was playing laser tag in a basement or tunnel or something, and the aliens ripped his face off. That freaked my 11 y/o self right the f uck out. But you're right, I still remember it more than half my life later.

[–] Little_Korean 18 years ago

The scene that got me was when the aliens, on a hunt for brains, enter a hairdressers and forcibly liberate some brains from their confines with the aid of buzz-saws...

"A little off the top?"

Then, near the end, the heroes enter the factory where the aliens are doing their big experiment thing, and kind yet another human on the stairs with his head holed. Those damn aliens just didn't know when to stop! Couldn't they left just one innocent bystander alone?!

When darkness overcomes the heart, Lil' Slugger appears...

[–] Jasons_Argonaut 18 years ago

Yes, that bone-saw thing was awful! They were brutal!

[–] coobis 18 years ago

I remember catching part of an episode when I was a kid... I think there was a man or woman in a hospital bed and a nurse came up to the bed to check on him/her and had her leg ripped off by someone/something under the bed.

It totally freaked me out.

[–] vindicator19 18 years ago

My only answer is that it was the 80's. Political correctness , at least in terms of what could be done on television was still in tis infancy. In addition to that, television had more freedom, in a way.

Cuss words couldn't be used, but brutal visions could be displayed on screen. The FCC and tv violence watchdog commities didn't have that much power. Yeah, they existed, but hollywood and tv outlets thought of them as more of a nuisance to creating entertainment.

then came the 90's and the clinton era and the social responciilbity trend which really flourished. I voted for clinton and love what he did for america, but one thing i hate is all the political correctness which intruded on tv and film.

Fast forward a few more years to the late 90's and shows could only be made if they were ripped from real headlines in the newspaper. Ala law and order.

After september 11th, shows that were about government conspiracies, terrorism, characters or anyone quesitoning autority, just could not be made.

Remember that the 80's from my point of view, was like another dimension LOL. I sometimes ownder if the 80's really happened.

Hollywood is a prostitute of sorts. its dominated by ratings and trends. And now we have youtube and all sorts of outlets for tv and film which is good and bad. Yes, we can dig up forgotten things and display them, but that undercuts the dvd market or the willingness for dvd producers to put things out if we can get them for free on youtube.

Who knows what will happen with tv and film, but thats my comment

[–] Dangerous-Boy 18 years ago

this is hsow fr4eaked me out when i was liitle. That hand sucking out people's eyes. X_X

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[–] kenburke0627 12 years ago

I remember this show's first season got a lot of flak for being too violent.

The only hassle I ever had was its claim that everyone had "forgotten" the first Martian invasion.

You make sense of that one!

[–] glynis23-282-577521 11 years ago

One of the most bloodthirsty things I've ever seen with the poking someone's eyes out and ripping someone's face off, it's like watching a 18 certificate film when your a kid.