Badmovies.org Forum

I finished watching Saw3, and a couple of nights ago Starz did a special on slasher films.  The talked about the new Horror movies are often more about the pain inflicted rather than killers simply slashing somebody's throught,

As I thought about it, movies like Saw, Hostel, really aren't "slasher" films.  I think really we are seeing the emergance of a new horror archatype (at least I think that'sthe word) Now instead of The Slasher, we are getting "The Torturer".

Jigsaw doesn't want his victims to necessarly die-but he does want them to feel pain.  In Hostel, the torturers were trying to get their money's worth so victim were killed in long painful ways.

Anyway, that's just my opinion,  Do you agree or disagree?

 Unfortuantly...I think your right.....and , I really don't care for them too much. Not that I find them too "horrifying"...just monotonous and boring. They lack imagination. It's just a big long squemish gross out...the lowest common denominator for film makers with no imagination. (And this is coming from a person who loves 'expliotation' films!!!)  :buggedout:

 

It's a theme that's been around in certain forms for a while now: Long drawn out pain, usually though, from psychological 'torture'.  You could say it's almost rooted in the whole 'snuff' film ideology, albeit sensationalized.  Our society these days can google videos of people getting blown up/killed in reality, so death seems a bit more trivial these days, but torture, now that's something you can sink your entertainment into.

This new generation is less subtle, but the same principles apply, only now they've combined the suspense and the kill with each other, and have sensationalized the way we view deaths on screen. 

Sure, it's primarily used as a marketing tool so people can watch a film and squirm and maybe even hoot and cheer as someone meets their brutal end, but it's an interesting development and evolution in terms of the horror genre.

Morality is probably the key theme in this: The killers in slasher films had usually one thought: kill, usually in revenge for some perceived slight, or with some goal.  In this one we are faced with morally void characters who want to extend pain upon their victims as much as possible, thereby adding more titillation on behalf of us the viewers.   

The horror genre has been in a constant state of escalation since the 70s.  This is just the next step.

I think the "torture" films of recent years are much better due to the psychological effects in both your examples SAW and HOSTEL. In the slasher film there was psychological aspects only for the film viewer, but not really for the victim because the deaths were usually quick. Torture films are more disturbing.

You right about it being the next escalation of horror. You probably wouldn't of had the "torture" films without the earlier "slasher" films. Giallo films were before slasher films.

I never liked the "slasher" films except maybe HALLOWEEN, but the "torture" film is easier to get into even if it is disturbing filmmaking.

Welcome to the forum WingedSerpent.

The recent (negative) buzz from film critics about the recent wave of what they call "torture porn" films is similar to the campaign Siskel and Ebert went on during the popularity of 1980s "mad slasher" flicks.  Siskel and Ebert went on tirades about how the slasher movies "hated women" and referred to the filmmakers as "sleaze merchants."  Those movies are tame compared to HOSTEL, SAW and similar movies of the past few years, which, as everyone in this thread already mentioned, are geared toward pain and suffering.  Like anything eles, these films will run their course and fade from popularity.  I wonder what the next big controversy will be?  Maybe we'll end up with dozens of giant monsters being unleashed from icebergs like in the 1950s . . .

Global warming causes a iceberg to melt thus releasing a prehistoric creature which had been frozen for centuries!

I'm copywriting that idea!

I think it makes a lot of sense that if you're going to try to scare your audience with the gore and violence instead of suspense then you'd do well to focus on the fear and suffering the gore and violence causes in the characters. I do miss the good old fashioned fun slasher, though, I really loved Rob Zombie's Halloween for being so old skool in that respect.

Personally, I've never understood why someone would want to see a movie about people being kidnapped and totrured or whatever. I'd rather watch something totally unrealistic (aliens, giant monsters, Blobs, whatever) as opposed to the kind of brutality that could and does happen to people every single day.

The first SAW was crazy. After the initial idea had been put on film in the first film the one's that follow there is no real interest.

Same thing for HOSTEL. What I found intriguing about this film was European Hostel lodging and travel and a look at Eastern Europe a place that seems dark and what could happen to someone over there. Makes you wonder and think twice about traveling there (or anywhere outside the U.S.). That's a scary film.

I think it's about how film developes rather than wanting to see someone tortured.

Like anything eles, these films will run their course and fade from popularity.  I wonder what the next big controversy will be?  Maybe we'll end up with dozens of giant monsters being unleashed from icebergs like in the 1950s . . . 
 
 
 


I hope that's ture.  I'd love the Giant Monster movie genere to come back

Actually all the old films are disturbing. Look at FRANKENSTEIN. You have a creation of a human form from the sown together body parts of deceased people. He's forced back into this life and walks around wishing he was dead. Because human creation is ugly compare to God's creations. A real nightmare.

I'd love to see our giant monsters return wether it be the rubber suited Japanese favorites or the multiple giant insect AIP type films.

I don't see them as an archetype so much as a tiny sub genre in the horror market that probably won't grow any larger than it already is.  I look at those movies the same way I look at dogfighting - there'll always be an audience for it but I just don't see it catching on with the population in general. 

Yea, I thought HOSTEL was different and a bit much for anyone. Again the story of Amercian tourist being caught up in some sick "elite hunting" thing was interesting. A place where you can torture Americans, but it cost more to get an American because of the world demand to torture and kill one. I don't have a great desire to see the sequel since the idea has now already been done and I don't feel more is better in this case, but I might rent it.

I don't think that these torture films are really anything new. They've just become mainstream. They have bigger budgets and more polish, but when you get right down to it, they're not so different from movies like Two Thousand Maniacs or Blood Sucking Freaks.

It probably isn't so much a lack of imagination that gives rise to this type of movie, but rather a sincere desire to scare and horrify an audience without challenging them too much. That was the original goal of the slashers. The problem there was that the characters were idiots, the violence was really over the top, and all the deaths happened quickly, like pulling off a bandaid. People cheered for the killer and eagerly anticipated the demise of various unlikeable characters. The filmmakers played to that, and the movies got more ridiculous.

Meanwhile, people got harder to scare, and Hollywood forgot how to scare. Or maybe there just wasn't enough profit in quality scares.

So, how do you horrify people? Take a slasher film and turn it around, make the deaths longer and at least a few of the characters more sympathetic. In that light, torture films are really just slasher films with a couple of the pieces put in backward.

The problem for me is that I like old slasher films because they are cheap, cheesy, silly fun. I like seeing an indestructible psycho knocking off obnoxious people in the goofiest ways imaginable. They aren't scary. If I want to be scared, I'll watch something like The Changeling or the original Ringu films from Japan, or Session 9.

Hollywood knows how to gross you out, disturb you and make you jump, but they haven't been good at scaring people in years. Torture films just take the non-scary slasher film and make it disturbing. That just sucks the fun out for me.

Actually films like SAW and HOSTEL must be the final end of the gore film. I mean how much more could a film visually and psychologically torture and kill a human being. I don't think anyone would want to see anything beyond what these two films have done, nor do I think it's possible to make anything more disturbing.

There are four other films that were disturbing, yet they didn't really show a lot of gore.

Psycho
Texas Chainsaw Massacre
Eraserhead
Silence Of The Lambs

Well, relevant horror has always been a mirror of our present social circumstances.  Particularly in the 70's following Vietnam.  There was a deep running despondence in America that inspired the early waves of the horror renaissance.  The current wave of torture porn is a reflection of real-life torture and social anxieties about where our culture is going.  We have this looming sense of doom, like we're back on the edge of oblivion as we were in the 80's so horror has this balls-out all or nothing apocalyptic sense about it.

The revelation of the CIA moving terror suspects, people snatched off the street, many innocent victims, shipped off to secret prisons in countries around the world where interrogation actually involves being beaten half to death with a pipe was a chilling realization.  No matter how you feel about the PATRIOT Act, the prospect of being kidnapped and tortured for intelligence that you don't have, for, essentially, no reason at all is one of the most harrowing things I can think of.  That's the reason that so many horror movies go back to reshoots to add sadistic torture scenes to them.

I thought this was an interesting direction that horror was taking until each movie began aping the best moves of the one before it but doing a half assed job of it.  Adding Lindsay Lohan or Elisha Cuthbert to the mix in an attempt to add some edge to their career does nothing for me.  They're still the antithesis of everything cool to me.

I's say horror films haven't changed that much. The formula is still there, 90 minutes of vivid (but manageable) horror that make our everyday problems look petty.

Indeed, there's been an escalation of the gore level since the 30s, that's inevitable. Gotta keep it up if you want the to keep the regulars interested. As The Burgomaester (or somebody else) said, the so-called "torture-porn" movies are just the last step, and they're not even a new invention. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_guignol)

I am sort of shocked at the negative backlash these movies are getting. Really, film critics should know by now that horror films need to be at least some good to keep the people interested in their bloody business. That impact and those nauseating sensations they often describe in their negative reviews are actually the proof the films are doing their job well. It's natural they found torture nauseating, but c'on, when they're pretending earlier slashers were sort of innocent fun they're taking us all for morons.

Not that there aren't any bad torture-porn films ("Captivity" comes to mind), but the films themselves are as harmless (or as offensive) as any old-school slashers.

Big Karma and Happy Halloween to you! Great link, also. If anyone is still stuck on the idea that these new horror products are so much worse than the more "subtle" horror of the past, check out the horror comics of the 1950s. (Tales from the Crypt is back on the market btw  :hot:)   

As long as we're speaking of torture porn, why not mention this old school classic (http://badmovies.org/movies/bloodsucking/index.html)?

Of course this stuff isn't totally new.  To me, lots of H.G. Lewis (2000 MANIACS, THE WIZARD OF GORE) is in the same vein.  The difference is that it's getting major theatrical releases now, rather than being underground.  I think it's probably just a matter of upping the stakes for a jaded public, but I wouldn't totally discount Rapscallion's theory that the relevance of torture in the political debate has something to do with it.  Still, I don't like the stuff.  It feels like it just aims to shock, and I'm beyond the stage in my life where being shocked is entertaining. 

Thanks for the karma, HarlotBug3. Happy Halloween to you as well.

And now, speaking of torture and political debate, I didn't hear the same critics attack "24" for its numerous occurrences of realistic torture. And not only that, it's carried out by THE HERO, it's shown to always produce results and the plot always justifies it as being the only solution. Now that's something the Great Thinkers of Our Time (and I don't mean the critics) should be worried about.

Don't take me wrong, I am a big fan of "24", but I found the torture scenes quite disturbing.

There's been plenty of critical reaction to 24's torture.

From a USA TODAY article:

Rota, who plays a Lebanese contractor in the Canadian TV comedy Little Mosque on the Prairie, disagrees with critics, including some military officials, who say 24's torture sequences have distorted the views of the public and some soldiers regarding what should be forbidden practices.

"I think it's an interesting point to bring up, but at the end of the day, (24) is a fantasy. I would be quite surprised if a person wakes up in the morning and decides he knows how to torture people because he's just seen 24," he says.

(Last week, executive producer Howard Gordon told The Philadelphia Inquirer that 24 will cut back on torture scenes later this season for creative reasons, not in response to critics. Fox and 24 would not comment on the criticism.)

http://www.usatoday.com/life/people/2007-02-18-24-rota_x.htm

Plenty of other examples if you search "24 torture criticism" on Google.  I'd actually say that here in the U.S. there has been more of a controversy over "24" than movies like SAW or HOSTEL, largely because the military made public statements to indicate that they did not approve of this sort of behavior.

That's interesting, I have missed all that. I live in Europe, and I only noticed the issue had been raised because of a couple of IMDB headlines, and I really mean one or two, during the whole show's life. Since I saw no further news I assumed the controversy had faded as fast as it had appeared.

I take back what I said about "24", then. My whole point is that the torture issue on the show had gone unnoticed.