Torture Porn - The View from My Armchair

The unlikely commercial success of so-called "torture porn" films has generated a lot of press over the past several years, spawning at least two franchises in the form of the "Saw" and "Hostel" films. The key appeal of these films is their set-piece scenes of elaborate and gruesome torture, providing teenagers everywhere with a convenient conversational gambit: "I saw this movie over the weekend where a guy does X to this other guy and then..." Much of the mainstream press surrounding these movies concentrates on the same "Decline of Western Civilization" bunk that saw the drafting of the Hays Code in the 1930s. Interestingly, the best discourse on the topic hasn't been written in publications like frequently-insightful New York Magazine (in an article misses the point entirely, the author makes sweeping generalizations about the "relatability" of characters in older horror films versus those in the more recent crop of ultraviolent cinema), but has been explored on various fan-based message boards where there's a healthy debate about the relative *quality* of these films.

There have been movies that could reasonably be dubbed "torture porn" for decades now, encompassing such works as the "Faces of Death" series, episodes in the "Guinea Pig" series and, arguably, much of the Italian cannibal cycle. I think what has people all aflutter is the fact that the recent American movies in this subgenre have been such money-making machines. Whispered-about movies swapped on grainy VHS are one thing, but these newer movies are the cinematic equivalent of the "Not In My Backyard" conversation. REAL people--real TEENS, even!--are watching these movies and now, apparently this is A Big Issue.

For me, the torture porn conversation is not one of the morality of the viewing audience and their shortcomings as human beings. It's a conversation about lazy film-making and piling on scenes of gore while letting style languish (perhaps even substituting copious gore FOR style). Much like a comedian should never go for the very first punchline he creates (writers of "Robot Chicken" and "Family Guy," take note), a horror director shouldn't stop short at "gross." This genre is about more than the Ick Factor. The reasons I disliked "Hostel" had nothing to do with the slicing of tendons, the gouging of eyeballs or the relative length and intimacy of the violent sequences--my reasons had everything to do with lackluster acting, a rotten script, and the retread of ground that was heavily traversed and not-so-fresh by the late 1970s. I hated "Hostel" so much that I'm adamantly skipping the sequel in spite of some cute stunt-casting with Edwige Fenech. Moving on to the "Saw" movies--I managed to lock myself out of my apartment in a post-surgical haze while the second half of "Saw II" played on my television. I see this as being the hand of a benevolent deity intervening on my behalf to shield me from more poorly-acted, implausible, Rube Goldberg murder scenes. The "Saw" movies are like a gore-soaked session of Mousetrap, without any of the intellectual stimulation of the board game.

Worse yet, these movies are utterly humorless. Scenarios that could be salvaged with a smirk or with some element of unreality (not to be confused with implausibility) are played with a deadpan that sucks all joy right out of the room. Cary Elwes' severed leg is SERIOUS BUSINESS. Hell, even a cool-looking jaw-trap murder-thing is SERIOUS BUSINESS, when it ought to give an opportunity for showing psychedelic madness on screen. All this seriousness might be an attempt at enhancing the audience's connection with what's happening in the film, but it seems to me to be the easy way to handle material like this, providing an "out" if questioned about the glamorization of movie violence. The movies are in bad taste, but not in fabulously bad taste--they never achieve the jaw-dropping high camp of the "Ilsa" films and there's never an interjection of weird comedy as in "Last House on the Left." This is even before addressing the fact that no one in these movies comes close to the screen presence of a Dyanne Thorne or a David Hess.

From where I sit, the main threat of torture porn seems to be that it can lead to me getting locked out of my apartment, or throwing loud hissy fits post-"Hostel." For the betterment of my personal universe, I'm staging a personal boycott of torture porn. There's just too much interesting splatter out there for me to trouble myself with.

Thank you to the League of Tana Tea Drinkers for nominating me for membership. Check out the League website for some of the best horror blogs on the web. I'm honored to be listed among such luminaries!