Quote:
Originally Posted by Jazzrat
This show definitely don't pull their punch with grotesque displays. The last one was particularly frightening for me for reasons i can't quite pin down. Maybe it's the perverse nature of the murder or arrangement of the body.
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If I'm ever asked again which anime series I would most like to see adapted into a Hollywood movie, it would be
Psycho-Pass. For one simple reason: so that the sheer horror of this episode's murder would have an actual, visceral impact on me.
While I can discern and understand what makes the scene grotesque, the layer of animation distances me from the visual horror in front of me, to the extent that I actually feel nothing at all, despite comprehending the horror. Truth be told, animation rarely horrifies me. It's just not "real" enough.
Or maybe it's because my psycho-pass reading is trending a bit too high... Hmm...
Anyway, back to the point: Yes, the arrangement of the body is definitely one aspect of the horror. It alludes to an inverted crucifix, which invokes references to black magic and demonic evil. Then of course there is the macabre nature of the murder itself, involving dismemberment and mutilation of the poor girl's corpse, which invokes the repugnant act of violating another person, in life and in death.
Then there is the act of presenting the murder as a work of art, which makes the crime even more disturbing. To present violent death as something beautiful... the mind and our sense of moral propriety would automatically recoil in shock.
Worst of all, is the fact that the worker could not even tell he was looking at a
real body. He was of course aware that it was creepy but he did not for a moment realise he was looking at something that was once alive.
Think on that for a moment. Then recall what Mido tried to do in the previous episode, to create avatars that represented an ideal so well that they become indistinguishable from their original forms.
This episode's murder served the same objective, to achieve ultimate fidelity to an absolute ideal. In ordinary situations, that may well be a noble goal. Under Makishima's hands, however, it becomes horribly twisted, like the poor girl crucified in reverse for all to gaze in awe.