Archive for the ‘Info’ Category

Working Toward a Total Understanding of Gore

Posted: September 24, 2014 in Info
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One of our greatest goals here at splatterjunkie.com is to quantify gore in order to make comparisons between movies. One way we have done this is with our Gore Quotient, which is a measure of the proportion of screen-area that is occupied by blood throughout a given movie. With the Gore Quotient, we are able to quantitatively tell if one movie is bloodier than another movie and by how much.

What we can’t tell at the moment is if a given movie is bloodier than average or not. We don’t know what the average amount of bloodiness is for a horror movie and we can’t calculate this average without calculating many more Gore Quotients. How many more Gore Quotients? Well, using IMDB’s advanced search feature, we looked up the total amount of feature film and direct-to-video horror releases between the years 1890 and 2014. The number we came up with was 18,480. That’s 18,480 total horror movies made worldwide since 1890.

Normally, to calculate an average, you would add up all your numbers and then divide by the amount of numbers, but 18,480 is way too much to sort through. So instead of dealing with all those movies, we simply take a representative sample from which we can determine what is true of the larger population of horror movies. Our total population is 18,480 and using the wonderful sample-size calculator at http://www.macorr.com, we were able to determine that a representative sample with a 95% confidence level and a 5% confidence interval would consist of 376 movies.

That means that we would need to calculate Gore Quotients for 376 movies in order to calculate the overall average amount of bloodiness amongst all horror movies. With a sample size of 376, we could be 95% sure that the average we get from the sample is true of the whole population of 18,480. Once we have this representative sample, calculating the average bloodiness would only be the beginning; we could perform all manner of statistical tests with our data and we could be 95% sure that our findings would be true of all horror movies.

For example, if we wanted to see how many horror movies feature most of their kills in the last 30 minutes, we could look at our Kill Graph data, determine how many movies meet that criteria, and then calculate the percentage. Let’s say that we find that 40% of our 376-movie sample (with confidence level 95% and confidence interval 5%) features movies where most of the kills occur in the last 30 minutes, then that means we can be 95% sure that between 35% and 45% of all horror movies have most of their kills in the last 30 minutes. Granted, there’s a lot of room for error between 35% and 45%, but our accuracy will steadily improve as our sample of movies grows. Long-term, we’re aiming for a confidence interval of 2%, which would decrease our error substantially. For that level of accuracy, we would need a sample size of 2,125 movies.

We’re not there yet, but one day we’ll reach our first goal of 376 movies reviewed and then we can get really get our statistics on. We are working toward a total understanding of gore, both to satisfy the curiosity of the average horror-junkie and to advance the study and knowledge of horror movies as a legitimate research area. That’s something you won’t find at any other horror review site. We are splatterjunkie.com, spread the word–Horror Through Math!

Introducing the Kill Graph!

Posted: September 1, 2014 in Info
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We here at Splatterjunkie.com have a new, exciting feature that we are adding to the SplatStats: the Kill Graph! The Kill Graph will be taking the place of the Kill Count number, although the Kill Count is still going to be tabulated as before, it is now brought to you in graph form.

With the new graph form, not only will you get the total Kill Count, you also see exactly where in the movie the kills occur, how much time passes in between kills, the rate at which the kill frequency increases, and the total movie running time. The horizontal arm of the graph (x-axis) represents the running time of the movie in minutes and the vertical arm of the graph (y-axis) represents the cumulative amount of kills (meaning the running tally of kills). To determine what the total Kill Count is, simply look at the last point on the graph and follow the line back to the number on the y-axis. For example, if the last point is on line 12 of the y-axis, then that means that there were a total of 12 kills throughout the movie.

This feature will be included in our upcoming review of Leprechaun in the Hood (coming soon) and will be added to our existing review of Dead Alive.

Rating System: The Blood Syringe and CC’s

Posted: July 19, 2014 in Info
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We here at splatterjunkie.com like to add our own visual flair to everything we do, so instead of boring, old stars to rate our movies, we have come up with the Blood Syringe. It’s basically the same as the 4-star rating system that you’re probably already familiar with, but instead of counting the number of stars, you count the amount of cc’s of blood that the syringe is filled with. For example, if the Blood Syringe is half-full, then that’s 2 cc’s of blood, which is the same as saying 2 stars. A completely full syringe would be 4 cc’s, which is the same as 4 stars (the highest rating). If you don’t feel like counting up the measurement marks on the syringe, don’t worry; the amount of cc’s is already spelled out for you right next to the syringe.

Be on the lookout for our review of Dead Alive, coming very, very soon.

Explaining the SplatStats Kill Count

Posted: July 19, 2014 in Info
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Hi all, after conducting the first kill count tally for Dead Alive, I realized that perhaps the Kill Count statistic is not so simple after all. For example, do I include animal kills as well as human kills? What about off-screen kills or kills that are merely implied? What about zombie kills? Aren’t zombies already dead and therefore can’t be killed? Besides which, a zombie might get chopped up and mutilated several times before “dying”, so…count each instance of mutilation or just the final one?

As such, I have decided to restrict my Kill Count to the following: On-screen human and animal kills. This includes implied kills, provided that they are implied directly (meaning by the one being killed, not a secondhand source) and  presently (meaning as they happen)  by something occurring on-screen. For example, being killed in silhouette (like behind a curtain or shadows on a wall) will be counted because the shadow is being cast directly from the victim and reflects a kill that is presently in progress. Another kill that is acceptable is an over the phone kill indicated by a scream, since the scream originates directly from the victim and again reflects a kill presently in progress.

Examples of kills that are not counted: a roomful of people in one scene and in the next scene, the room is full of gore (the kills occurred off-screen and nothing on-screen implied them as they were happening, just before and after shots). Admittedly, this will probably lead to some unpopular judgment calls; for instance, the dog that gets killed in John Carpenter’s The Thing would be counted, but the head in a box from Seven would not be counted.

Another example of a kill that is not counted: Someone saying that so-and-so character “didn’t make it” (this kill happened off-screen and is not implied by the victim directly, but by a report from a secondhand source). The only exception to the “no secondhand sources” rule is if the kill is reported by a character visually in a flashback; these kills will be counted, interestingly enough, even if it turns out that the character was lying and the alleged victim is still alive–I am measuring kills depicted, not kills that actually occur within the continuity of the story.

Also, I am only measuring direct kills; if someone gets shot and then dies from their injury later, that will not be counted as a kill. In the event that a character sustains an injury but their actual death is not shown, this will be counted as a kill if the injury is likely to result in imminent death. For example, if a character’s heart is ripped out, it will be counted even if the actual moment of death is not shown. On the other hand, someone actively being drowned will not be counted if the death is not shown, because the condition of drowning can be stopped and survived, whereas a ripped-out heart can not be undone. This holds even if it is confirmed in the story that the drowning character has died. Zombie “kills” are not included due to the difficulties stated above.

Ok, just thought I’d clear that up in case someone does a count of their own and gets a different number; I didn’t miscount, I just counted selectively according to my own criteria. And remember: statistics are not immune to interpretation and subjectivity, so let’s not view them as ultimate truth, but as useful mathematical summaries that provide us with easily digestible data.

Introducing SplatStats and the Gore Quotient!

Posted: July 15, 2014 in Info
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Greetings horror fiends, within the next few days, we here at splatterjunkie.com will be posting our first movie review: Peter Jackson’s Dead Alive!! Our review will include a feature called SplatStats. The SplatStats track three kinds of horror movie statistics: Kill Count, Gore Quotient, and Weapon Inventory. The Kill Count is simply a tally of the total amount of kills in a movie and the Weapon Inventory is a list of all weapons used. The Gore Quotient is bit more complicated.

Basically, the Gore Quotient is a mathematical measure that tells you how bloody a movie is. This is accomplished through an in-depth procedure that allows us to determine the area (in square inches) of all the frames in a film. With this information, we are then able to determine what proportion of this screen area contains blood/gore. For example, the movie Dead Alive has a Gore Quotient of 1,927; that means that for every 10,000 square inches of measured screen area, 1,927 of those square inches were occupied by blood.

Dead Alive is well-known for being one of the goriest movies of all time, so it was specifically chosen to be the high benchmark against which all other movies compare. So if a movie gets a Gore Quotient of 964, you’ll know that it’s approximately half as bloody as Dead Alive. And that’s not opinion, that’s measurable fact.

Watch out for our review of Dead Alive, coming soon.