Morbid Question: Why are corpses in films so unrealistic?

[JohnL]

I'm not talking about the cheapo effects in a B-movie, but even in big-budget movies like Silence of the Lambs, where they obviously had the budget to make whatever they wanted. This question popped into my mind Sunday while I was watching the show Crossing Jordan and they found a guy out in the woods, who had been dead a week. They used the standard, partially mummified type corpse that is common to most all horror movies and medical shows.

Typically, corpses in movies look like normal people, only a little more pale. If the person is supposed to have been dead for a while, the corpse is usually shown to be greyish-brown and all dried out.

In reality, corpses that are several days old are generally greenish-purple in color, slimy and kind of look like the skin is sliding off.

Do they think that using a realistic corpse would be too gruesome for the audience? Or do they think that people have become so accustomed to the way bodies look in movies and TV shows that they wouldn't think a realistic corpse looked "real"?

[Deej]

JohnL wrote:

> Do they think that using a realistic corpse would be too
> gruesome for the audience? Or do they think that people have
> become so accustomed to the way bodies look in movies and TV
> shows that they wouldn't think a realistic corpse looked
> "real"?

I think that's pretty much it! Likewise, when people are shot in movies they either do the whole death-ballet where they twitch, twirl, and fall, or they fly back 50 feet. The reality is usually a less exciting "lights out, crumple" kind of thing. Also, I think, in programs like CSI, they want the corpse to be identifiable to the viewer sh when they do the flashback/reconstruction, the audience knows who the dead guy is.

[ulthar]

JohnL wrote:

>Or do they think that people have
> become so accustomed to the way bodies look in movies and TV
> shows that they wouldn't think a realistic corpse looked
> "real"?

I think that's it.  People have certain expectations, such as the 'sounds in space' we have hashed over before.  I think the appearance of corpses is similar.

I've seen some pretty nasty bodies.....but no matter what the appearance is, until they develop 'odor' as a special effect, it won't be realistic.

[Dunners]

actually silence of th elambs wasnt a big budget movie, it was a medium budget film. Also the corpses in silence were real actress's.

[JohnL]

>Also, I think, in programs like CSI, they want the corpse to be identifiable to the
>viewer sh when they do the flashback/reconstruction, the audience knows who
>the dead guy is.

I hadn't thought of that. Still, I'm surprised that none of them even attempt to get the look of a corpse right.

>I've seen some pretty nasty bodies.....but no matter what the appearance is, until
>they develop 'odor' as a special effect, it won't be realistic.

Well, at least some shows/movies have at least mentioned the smell. In SOTL they put ointment under their noses to help with the smell and in the CJ episode, they complained of the body's odor.

[Haze]

There are a couple of ways of looking at this problem. The first is that nobody has the budget or the talent to make a realistic looking corpse. More than likely, this is not the case even in a long shot.

Another is that they are made to look fake to debase the actual horror on screen, they try and slip you a comfort pill so that your mind is scared, but not so scared as to be turned off or frightened to the point of not enjoying the movie. This is possible, though giving alot of people in Hollywood far too much credit.

The last one that I can think of is that everyone (including most of the audience) is incompetent. This is sort of like the first case, only a lot worse.

Anyway you take it, movies aren't always meant to be precieved as real and in that way they try to make the film a fantasy. It also gives them bounds and the right dream up implausibilities like the "Sound in Space" scenerio. It basically plays off the unknown and the possibility that humanity doesn't know every thing or has scene everything.

[The Ghoul]

I've been thinking about this one since Stand By Me. Remember the dead kid? Jeezuz, I think one of the Cory's killed him!! The dead kid looked kind of fresh to me...

[JohnL]

>The dead kid looked kind of fresh to me...

Especially for getting hit with a train and then lying around in the woods for a few days. I guess there weren't any animals in the area either...

[ulthar]

JohnL wrote:


> Especially for getting hit with a train and then lying around
> in the woods for a few days. I guess there weren't any animals
> in the area either...

My first page-out at my old job (Crime Scene Inv.) was train vs. pedestrian.  We had pieces spread over several hundred (or was it nearly a thousand??) feet of track and in bushes outside the track right-of-way.

It's likely in this particular case, if the movie makers had been 'realistic' in the presentation, it would not have had much impact as a corpse.....throwing raw ground beef around with a few bones and a foot and hand sprinkled in for good measure would not likely have 'registered' with many audience members.

Moral: Sleeping (or passing out) on train tracks is not a very good idea.

[JohnL]

>My first page-out at my old job (Crime Scene Inv.) was train vs. pedestrian. We
>had pieces spread over several hundred (or was it nearly a thousand??) feet of
>track and in bushes outside the track right-of-way.
>
>It's likely in this particular case, if the movie makers had been 'realistic' in the
>presentation, it would not have had much impact as a corpse.....throwing raw
>ground beef around with a few bones and a foot and hand sprinkled in for good
>measure would not likely have 'registered' with many audience members.

Is it possible that he could have just been clipped by the train while "train dodging" and thus killed by the impact, but left mostly intact as he was thrown into the bushes?

[Jim H]

CSI DOES have corpses that are fairly realistic, at least compared to most movies.  The week old ones usually look...  Weird.

[JohnL]

>CSI DOES have corpses that are fairly realistic, at least compared to most
>movies. The week old ones usually look... Weird.

How so? I've only seen a couple episodes of CSI...

[onionhead]

A week old corpse tends to bloat as decomposition produces gas, particularly in the abdomen.  The sloughing-off appearance of the flesh is equally repellant to folks not accustomed to such sights.  We must remember that TV has censors and product sponsors--who wants a Big Mac after watching a rotted piece of man-meat?  While a realistic corpse might be interesting to the fine-eyed home viewer, it isn't a ratings grabber.
As for film, makeup artists have a more liberal forum, but very few it seems have the ability or daring to make a real looking corpse, and more importantly it depends on the vision of a film's director.   One suspects that if the director were a makeup person, we would have more realism in this regard.



Post Edited (05-17-04 03:52)

[Susan]

>>While a realistic corpse might be interesting to the fine-eyed home viewer, it isn't a ratings grabber.<<

Unless people want to see the real thing on HBO's "Autopsy"

[JohnL]

>Unless people want to see the real thing on HBO's "Autopsy"

The couple episodes of that I watched didn't show anything all that gruesome. I've seen much worse on the net.



Post Edited (05-20-04 08:33)