Certain war films like Saving Private Ryan have people holding their guts in, but most people don't consider war movies as "gore flicks". I guess it depends on how important the gore is to the story. Movies that savor the kills in all their gory glory are definitely gore films.

Certain movies are hard to draw the line at though, like RoboCop, Dredd, etc. I guess you could call those gore movies.

I read a list recently of the top gore films. Some of the movies on the list were Dead Alive, Nightmare on Elm Street, and Seed of Chucky. The gave the title of gore film to seed because of the scene with John Waters. Is this the new standard of a gore film?

Oh man, that's harsh... That's why I hate these kinds of lists. Most people don't know what they're talking about. Sure, Elm Street has blood, but not very much gore, to be honest. Slices aren't "gore", per se. People getting thrown around a room and making it bloody isn't gore. A blood geyser from a hole in a bed isn't gore.

I'd say no, it's not a gore film if it's just a brief moment of gore. It has to be a main element. Several notable moments of gore. Nightmare on Elm Street definitely isn't what I'd call a gory movie. When I think of gore, I think of disembowelments, severed limbs, exploding heads, that sort of thing. Meat dripping in blood.

Meat dripping in blood.... I like the sound of that!

I always vote for quality over quantity. A movie that is overlaid with cheap looking gore, especially CGI, does absolutely nothing to me, but you could have a movie that has that 2-3 really really well made scenes that would totally redeem the movie and allow you to label it as gore film. (Marian Dora's Cannibal off the top of my head, little gore but when they show it they really deliver).

Oh hell, don't get me started on CGI gore. I don't think that shit will every look halfway decent. I can't recall if I have seen that particular movie, but I'm going to look it up!

Hmmmm... that's a good query. The answer will probably vary depending on the viewer, but for me the film probably would need more than just 1 or 2 gory scenes to be considered a "gore" film. What I personally consider gore would be a film that has pronounced gore for more than maybe 25% of scenes. Or perhaps, going into the splatter area (maybe that's an offshoot?), the likes of Meatball Machine, Dead Alive, etc.

This is random because I just did a quick search, but this list for example contains a number of films that I would not consider "gore" though pretty much all of them do contain gory/violent scenes: https://www.imdb.com/list/ls000060287/

Thanks for posting that list peep. Yeah, it's weird how some people are now labeling those types of movies as gore films.

Good question. I've pondered this before too and obviously, first and foremost, to be considered a "gore film," the gore needs to / should be, the star of the show. Movies like HG Lewis' famous horror films, Italian zombie movies, The Story of Ricky, and so on.

But where the lines get sorta blurred for me are when films have so much more to offer than just gore. Take Day of the Dead for instance. A movie that is just phenomenal on its own terms. The story, the acting, the tension, mood, music, etc. The gore is just the icing on the cake. And for how well-done and graphic the gore is when it does start a-flowin', there really isn't all that much of it. Like if you combined all the gore bits together it'd only add up to a small portion of the film. So...to gore or not to gore? I dunno. It isn't "just" a gore film, even tho certain parts are awfully gory.

What about something along the lines of Ichi the Killer?

I don't remember Ichi the Killer all that well to say one way or the other.

Hmmm, this is a tough one. For me, Poltergeist comes to mind right away. I wouldn't call it a gore film, but that one scene where that guy rips his own face off in the bathroom is pretty damn gory. So, just bearing that in mind, I would say that it takes more than one or two gory scenes to qualify the movie as a gore movie. Somehow, goriness should be the main point of the movie, or one of the main points, for the movie to qualify as gore... I think I would say the tone or spirit of the movie should embrace gore, either seriously or comedically, for the movie to be a real gore movie.

I remember that scene as a child. Scared the hell out of me. Nowadays the effect is laughable, but so much nostalgia to it.