FLASHBACK 1995: There are some movies even a film critic shouldn't have to watch. 

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In commemoration of City Weekly's 40th anniversary, we are digging into our archives to celebrate. Each week, we FLASHBACK to a story or column from our past in honor of four decades of local alt-journalism. Whether the names and issues are familiar or new, we are grateful to have this unique newspaper to contain them all.

Title: Deadly Sins
Author: Mary Dickson
Date: Nov. 2, 1995

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I suppose I'm one of the few critics who will not see Seven, David Fincher's film about a serial killer who murders according to the seven deadly sins. That's right. I refuse to go. I don't care that it remains at the top of the box office charts or that it is getting favorable reviews as "the year's No. 1 thriller." People whose sensibilities I respect have warned me not to see this disturbing film.

I felt physically sick after one friend described some of Seven's murders in graphic detail: a glutton forced to eat until his stomach bursts; a greedy lawyer forced to literally exact a pound of flesh; a lustful man who is forced to strap a knife to his penis to penetrate a prostitute; a slothful man who is tortured in his bed for a year. I had nightmares just from hearing about these horrific crimes. What kind of a mind thinks up such a plot? And why would producers back a film based on a young screenwriter's sick fascinations with torture and murder?

A friend in Florida who has worked as a jail psychologist called to yell at me for telling him to see Seven. He said it was worse than anything his inmates had ever imagined. I told him he had me mixed up with somebody else, because I had never seen Seven and I certainly wasn't recommending it. He is a man who's seen all manner of inhumanity, but he regretted having seen Seven.

There are some films I simply prefer not to see. I had no trouble seeing Showgirls. It was insipid, but it didn't give me nightmares. Nudity has never bothered me. I draw the line, however, at depravity. I'm tired of excusing such gruesome fare as cutting-edge cinema. Maybe it is, but I don't want it in my head. Hot young filmmakers like Quentin Tarantino have created a whole cult of chic violence. As New York Times' Betsy Shark has so aptly noted, "The visual language of some of the most influential filmmakers today is being written in blood." Regardless of the technical wizardry and artistic intent of these mean-spirited films, I find the end result is the same. They deaden the human spirit.

As a freelancer for a weekly newspaper, I don't have to see every film that comes out. I did see Pulp Fiction and wrote a column about how I had trouble accepting the brutality Tarantino so freely wields, even though I found the film amazingly original and very funny. But Pulp Fiction doesn't have the grim realism that would keep me up at night.

I did not, however, see Silence of the Lambs, for instance. I never wanted to. A friend of mine has pestered me endlessly to watch the video with her. I always decline. I don't want it wandering my memory banks.

The list of movies I won't see goes on—films like Natural Born Killers; The Cook, the Thief, His Wife and Her Lover; Bad Lieutenant; Reservoir Dogs and Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer. Many of them have been critically acclaimed. I'm sure they have their merits. There's no question they have a following. But I can't bring myself to watch a serial killer who wears women's skin as clothing, a naked man pummeled by a gang of thugs then basted in excrement, a child molested, a woman stabbed in the cheek with a fork, a nun gang-raped on the altar, a sociopath torturing his captive with a straight razor and anti-heroes whose spray of bullets separates a head from a body.

This unabashed brutality is what passes for artistry? Producers rationalize that they are simply giving the public what it wants. Judging from what succeeds at the box office and the video stores, a lot of Americans have an insatiable appetite for violence. We don't just condone it, we demand it and we're willing to pay for it.

The great irony is that we then pretend to be shocked and dismayed at the violence that's so rapidly spreading in our streets. Do we fail to see a connection here? The brutality that is so rampant in many of today's films can't help but seep into our collective consciousness and contribute to our cultural numbing. I certainly don't advocate censorship. But I think it's time filmmakers exercise some responsibility and filmgoers become more discriminating.

That's why I won't see Seven or films of its ilk, no matter how highly-touted they are. They leave me feeling defeated, diminished and defiled. The insights they provide into the human condition are simply too grotesque. In my book, that's NOT entertainment.