The Art of Torture
The Art of Torture According to a 2006 survey conducted by BBC News, 58% of Americans say that any form of torture upon a fellow man for any reason is wrong (“One-third” 1), which is ironic because horror films, such as Saw and Hostel, where victims are brutally murdered and ripped to shreds for the audience’s pure entertainment pleasure topped the box offices with their releases in 2004 and 2005. By looking at sociopolitical platforms and moral messages behind the ‘torture porn’ subgenre, it is apparent that this style of film is in fact art and has a prominent spot in the history of film, because it is expressive and forces people to come to terms with difficult truths about our culture and humanity as a whole. As the movie industry has progressed, it has pushed the limit with each new release in hopes of continuing to get the ‘shock and awe’ response out of its audiences. It use to be the simple monster popping out of a closet or the grotesque face of the killer sufficed in bringing terror to people, but as these aesthetics are used consistently, movie goers have become desensitized to them, causing filmmakers to have to intensify the subject matter they show onscreen. This is what helped affirm the subgenre known as ‘torture porn’. Torture porns are often characterized as not being as concerned with the plot as it is with how graphic and gory its kill scenes are. The spurt of blood is suppose to be equivalent to that of the money shot in porn (Edelstein 1). It is for these reasons that there is much controversy surrounding this subgenre of horror films, asking if this type of filmmaking should even be considered art and/or is worth mentioning in our history of films. Besides the excessive amount of blood shown, torture porns share attributes such as not really having the traditional ‘killer popping out and making you jump in your seat’ kind of scare. Most of the terror that comes from these movies is just the disturbing content of people
Cited: “One-third support ‘some torture’”. BBC NEWS. 19 Oct. 2006. 4 May 2011. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/6063386.stm Worland, Rick. The Horror Film: An Introduction. Blackwell Publishing 2007. Edelstein, David. “Now Playing at Your Local Multiplex: Torture Porn”. New York Movies. 28 Jan. 2006. 7 May 2011. http://nymag.com/movies/features/ 15622/ Rogers, Thomas. “The Meaning of Torture Porn”. 7 June 2010. 1 May 2011. http:// www.salon.com/books/feature/2010/06/07/philosophy_of_horror_movies