I like vulgar movies. I’d pick a vulgar movie over something “tasteful” any day. This isn’t specifically because I like to be shocked. I just think there’s more life in so-called bad taste. William Friedkin’s Killer Joe (based on a stage play by Tracy Letts) is a good example of what I mean. Very little of what happens in this movie is pleasant. It starts with scheming, betrayal and a middle-aged woman brandishing her pubic hair, and it only gets wilder from there on out. If I didn’t like the movie, I’d say it was lurid. But I did like it, so I say it’s vulgar. I grant you, the difference between the two words is subjective, perhaps even spurious. If I had to try to define it, I guess I’d say I prefer the baroque to the grotesque.
Posted by jtatham 
