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The murder took place just as my wife and I were dozing off in front of Newsnight. 'They're trying to kill me!' a man screamed, outside our window.
We opened the curtains, but the road was too dark to see much more than shadowy figures and the glint of a blade.
Other neighbours across the road saw more clearly the way the three masked men clubbed their victim with a baseball bat and knifed him repeatedly. Educated voices called out from doorways or windows. 'What do you think you're doing?' said one. 'Stop that at once!' admonished another.
16 years ago, a murder took place outside Christopher's house, which taught him a few unexpected and disconcerting things about the relationship between real-life and movie violence
They sounded like Joyce Grenfell upbraiding infants for misbehaviour — but this wasn't comedy. It was real violence, of a kind so unfamiliar that — bizarrely yet tellingly — it seemed less authentic than the kind of slaughter I witness every week in the cinema.
Two neighbours cradled the victim in their arms, trying to comfort him. I had phoned the police and ambulance during the few seconds he was under attack. Now, the man was visibly, audibly dying a few yards from my front door in North London. Blood didn't spurt out, the way it does in horror movies. It leaked.
Even so, by the time I'd run to help him, it was already a red stream running down the pavement. I remember thinking: I haven't seen so much blood since Reservoir Dogs.
But this, of course, wasn't fake blood.
The police told me later he had been stabbed 17 times. The killing of Abdul Kamal Samad, a father-of-two from East London, was a tragedy for his family, and it took 15 years to bring even one of his attackers to justice.
That murder, which we later heard was gang-related, took place 16 years ago, but it taught me a few lasting, unexpected and disconcerting things about the relationship between real-life and movie violence.
As Christopher has seen so much film violence, he has, without noticing it, become desensitised - a shocking reminder that none of us are immune from the effects of screen violence (pic from 1992 film Reservoir Dogs)
What surprised me most was my own reaction, or rather my lack of reaction. My neighbours were visibly shaken. Some had nightmares afterwards.
I was totally unaffected. The reason was obvious. As a film critic, I routinely see the most horrible murders and most brutal killings every week. I see more violence in a month than frontline police officers will witness in a lifetime.
It is, of course, make-believe, but the skill of modern special effects ensures the violence is very lifelike, while modern mores mean it is shown in ever-greater, gorier detail.
What the murder in my road brought home to me was that I have seen so much film violence that I have, without noticing it, become desensitised. It is a shocking reminder that none of us is immune from the effects of screen violence.
This week's most depressing film is Kick-Ass 2, a movie so pointlessly violent that one of its stars, Jim Carrey, has refused to promote it
The majority of film releases are aimed quite cynically, and irresponsibly, at immature male adolescents and young adults. They encourage a belief that violence is heroic and offers easy solutions. A capacity for violence is presented as the essence of sexual attractiveness for a male.
Witnessing a man die as the result of a real-life attack changed my outlook.
Having watched many hundreds more increasingly violent movies since then, it is clear to me the level of brutality in film-making has risen to new heights, or rather fallen to new depths. This week's most depressing film is Kick-Ass 2, a movie so pointlessly violent that one of its stars, Jim Carrey, has refused to promote it.
Kick-Ass 2 makes a joke out of rape and preaches that extreme violence is not only justified, but fun.
Will a pacifist watching it suddenly be turned on to a life of violent crime? Will it turn normal people into rapists? Of course not, but films such as these help create a world in which brutality isn't just acceptable, but the norm.
Another example of pointless violence is the recent Ryan Gosling film, Only God Forgives. It is far more horrific and irresponsible than Kick-Ass 2. But because it had fancy, monochrome lighting and a star who's currently the hottest in Hollywood, it attracted four and five-star reviews from critics who would normally be repelled by such films.
Of course, there is a place for violence in drama. One of the most famous scenes in Shakespeare is Gloucester having his eyes gouged out in King Lear, an act that was intended to be viscerally shocking and — 500 years on — still is.
Some of my favourite films feature extreme violence, including Fight Club, Pulp Fiction and GoodFellas. I am happy to acknowledge some horror films that include hideous acts of cruelty, Hitchcock's seminal slasher film Psycho is one, are masterpieces.
But Kick-Ass 2 and Only God Forgives are a very long way from being masterpieces. They are evidence of a sea-change in film-makers' attitudes towards violence, probably inspired by the popularity of ultra-violent computer games.
Films like Kick-Ass 2 and Only God Forgives are a very long way from being masterpieces. They're evidence of a sea-change in film-makers' attitudes towards violence, probably inspired by ultra-violent computer games
Extreme graphic violence is being used cinematically, not to denote anti-social behaviour, but to entertain and titillate. In Kick-Ass 2, you'll see gang warfare, mass murder and a rape scene played for laughs. The amputation, torture and mutilation-fancying methods of the good guys are indistinguishable from those of the bad.
Both films approach violence, bloodshed and pain in a flippant, facetious, emotionally dead way: precisely the spirit in which a gangland killer approaches a victim.
Do such films desensitise? I am in no doubt that they do. I've witnessed it in myself.
But don't take my word for it. The U.S. military has long used violent films and video games to 'toughen up' recruits. In 1996, the Marine Corps commissioned a video game, Marine Doom, to train soldiers.
The worry is not what we're doing to a handful of film critics or a few thousand military recruits; it's that we're raising a generation of desensitised children and young adults.
There were times during the screening of Kick-Ass 2 when, as I heard people around me chuckling at some new atrocity, I felt like a foreigner in my own country. Ten years ago, movies like the Kick-Ass films would have struggled to be granted an 18 certificate. Now they're routinely labelled 15.
Some of Christopher's favourite films feature extreme violence, including Fight Club and GoodFellas. He is happy to acknowledge some horror films that include hideous acts of cruelty are masterpieces
As the British Board of Film Classification has gradually reneged on once easily understood rules — no rapes to be shown non-judgmentally, or extreme violence without moral context — some film-makers have taken every new opportunity to push the boundaries of taste.
Anyone who writes a piece like this knows he or she is going to be abused on the internet. After my review of the first Kick-Ass, in which, I aired my fears of the impact this sort of movie could have, I was subjected to an extraordinary campaign of vilification — often by people who protested they hadn't been desensitised by such movies, when their crude aggression showed with horrible clarity that they had.
Two Facebook sites came into existence, purely in order to spit out the most venomous hatred against me.
Over the years, I've had numerous threats of violence and death, from IRA sympathisers through to Star Wars fans who felt I was being unduly harsh about George Lucas's screenwriting ability.
The huge, seemingly unstoppable, growth in abusive behaviour on the net reflects the same culture of barbarism we see in films, television, video games and comics.
Is cinema wholly responsible for the ignorance, violence and callousness in our society? Of course not, but films like Kick-Ass 2 (pictured) and Only God Forgives are symptoms of a deep-rooted malaise
The one sure way for any critic to incur the most vicious personal abuse is to express artistic doubts about any film based on a comic strip.
We are reaping the whirlwind of an education system that encourages freedom of expression but fails to lay down parameters of social responsibility or acceptable behaviour.
Is cinema wholly responsible for the ignorance, violence and callousness in our society? Of course not, but films like Kick-Ass 2 and Only God Forgives are symptoms of a deep-rooted malaise. And they are helping to encourage the current culture of cruelty that should concern every one of us.
There was one other chilling aspect I remember from that real-life murder. That was the coolness, the callousness, the macho body-language of those vicious assailants as they swaggered off down my road.
They looked exactly as if they thought they were behaving like movie heroes.
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What rubbish. The very idea that people on the internet are attacking you for your views in such a hateful way is because they are watching nasty films is pathetic. I'm annoyed by this silly article because it contains the line 'It is a shocking reminder that none of us is immune from the effects of screen violence.' You, my friend, are judging me. You say NONE OF US are immune. Really? I'm a full blown horror fan in my fifties and proud of it, I saw a brutal fight that scared the hell out of me and shocked me to my core. Real life still does. How you react to things is individual. You should be proud you kept a calm head. However, how dare you think we are all like you. Just to make it clear to you Mr Tookey - WE ARE NOT.
- night soul , bideford, United Kingdom, 17/8/2013 09:53
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