Mamba
01-02-2012, 09:09 PM
I'm not really interested in the so-called "torture-porn" genre: movies like Hostel or Saw; torture-as-exploitation just isn't a good movie experience for me.
Why? Well, firstly the feeling they conjure inside you is one of disgust, rather than the familiar foreboding and hair-raising spine shiver of true fear. And then there's the characters, who are usually never developed enough to make us even feel for them; they're simply soulless paper victims, set up to be sliced and diced apart. Who are they? Who cares? All that's left, all you can literally do - is feel revulsion. There is no connection. How can it, then, stay with you or resonate in any way? Torture porn and movies like it leave many true horror fans (like yours truly) feeling numb, and rather like they need to take several showers afterwards to remove the "unclean" feeling that the movie has generated.
This sub-genre of horror "Torture porn" has no particular moral point of view (find it?) and therefore no artistic value (and a commonly agreed-on trait of pornography is that it serves only to titillate, not to illuminate - hence the name). These movies have no real depth, are mean-spirited, increasingly sadistic, have no redeeming qualities and leave you with nothing more than a sharpened sense of your own mortality and a bad taste in the mouth. Some call this entertainment, I call it cheap.
It seems to me that the general goal is to make people sit through ever-increasing levels of violence and bloodshed with the excuse that the act of making this kind of movie proves something about the "brutality of human nature" and the deep message that goes with it. It doesn't. It just means you've subjected people to some woman (or man) getting a chainsaw stuck in their skull, who is later skinned alive after being horribly burnt - for no other reason than you felt like it (and it was hopefully the worst death the box office has seen yet!), and now everyone feels vaguely disgusted and weirded out.
Good call.
If any movie should be made about the brutality of human nature it should be about the self-indulgent writers and producers of these type of movies who have carte blanche to feed their incessant (and worrying) desire to push the envelope on every kind of gratuitous sadism you can think of* in the name of "art" (and I use that term very loosely indeed.)
*for example
http://www.pajiba.com/twisted_masterpieces/a-serbian-film-for-torture-porn-filmmakers-who-considered-rapeicide-when-hostel-didnt-go-far-enuf.php
Essentially, all we have today is film-makers of this genre who go out of their way to top the "depraved" and "sick" factor that previous film-makers have achieved. Yeah, always got to raise the bar...Only, that's real bad news for the art, as the "message" (if there ever was one) gets lost behind the massive overbearing wall of gore, paedophilia, rape and mental fuckedup-ness. Extreme violence realistically portrayed so as to appeal to the most base and unhealthy interests of those wishing to watch it. Mmm. Tasty.
I've watched my fair share of violence and bloodshed, and shock-horror- I don't abhor it.- However, there is a huge chasm of difference between situations and historical stories that move you - together with character development which allows you to get involved on an emotional level, and a fairground of exploitative torture or sexual depravity for its own sake.
I wish, in all honesty that some of these movies had never been made. The trouble with censoring these kind of movies is that, well you can't. For starters, censorship is associated with dictatorship - and that has everyone up in arms... however - doesn't extreme sexual depravity and sadism fall under a different category in censorship? If it doesn't - maybe it should? It's hardly "keeping vital information from the masses" now is it? Unless you want to learn how to sadistically torture and kill that is. Hey, maybe you do...who am I to judge?
Unfortunately, as we well know the standard audience for movies of this nature feel even more determined to stand up for freedom of expression, to see what all the fuss was about, or to “test” their own mental/emotional strength (this movie won't break ME) and you can bet that the movie is marketed in a sensationalist fashion as "the one movie they don't want you to see!" and the film gets even more exposure than it would have in the first place.
And the film-maker stands up for his "artistic integrity"
...whatever that means nowadays.
And so it goes on.
I guess the question I've led myself to through all this is the following: When cruelty or sexual depravity for its own sake, whether real or acted by other people, is considered entertainment, shouldn't this make alarm bells ring somewhere in our psyche?
I know it does for me.
On other genres: I enjoy the occassional war movie immensely, I also love most psychological thrillers. I like dramas, romantic comedies and I can get kicks from genuine horror, but torture porn, and its brethren gets a big thumbs down from me.
What about you guys?
Why? Well, firstly the feeling they conjure inside you is one of disgust, rather than the familiar foreboding and hair-raising spine shiver of true fear. And then there's the characters, who are usually never developed enough to make us even feel for them; they're simply soulless paper victims, set up to be sliced and diced apart. Who are they? Who cares? All that's left, all you can literally do - is feel revulsion. There is no connection. How can it, then, stay with you or resonate in any way? Torture porn and movies like it leave many true horror fans (like yours truly) feeling numb, and rather like they need to take several showers afterwards to remove the "unclean" feeling that the movie has generated.
This sub-genre of horror "Torture porn" has no particular moral point of view (find it?) and therefore no artistic value (and a commonly agreed-on trait of pornography is that it serves only to titillate, not to illuminate - hence the name). These movies have no real depth, are mean-spirited, increasingly sadistic, have no redeeming qualities and leave you with nothing more than a sharpened sense of your own mortality and a bad taste in the mouth. Some call this entertainment, I call it cheap.
It seems to me that the general goal is to make people sit through ever-increasing levels of violence and bloodshed with the excuse that the act of making this kind of movie proves something about the "brutality of human nature" and the deep message that goes with it. It doesn't. It just means you've subjected people to some woman (or man) getting a chainsaw stuck in their skull, who is later skinned alive after being horribly burnt - for no other reason than you felt like it (and it was hopefully the worst death the box office has seen yet!), and now everyone feels vaguely disgusted and weirded out.
Good call.
If any movie should be made about the brutality of human nature it should be about the self-indulgent writers and producers of these type of movies who have carte blanche to feed their incessant (and worrying) desire to push the envelope on every kind of gratuitous sadism you can think of* in the name of "art" (and I use that term very loosely indeed.)
*for example
http://www.pajiba.com/twisted_masterpieces/a-serbian-film-for-torture-porn-filmmakers-who-considered-rapeicide-when-hostel-didnt-go-far-enuf.php
Essentially, all we have today is film-makers of this genre who go out of their way to top the "depraved" and "sick" factor that previous film-makers have achieved. Yeah, always got to raise the bar...Only, that's real bad news for the art, as the "message" (if there ever was one) gets lost behind the massive overbearing wall of gore, paedophilia, rape and mental fuckedup-ness. Extreme violence realistically portrayed so as to appeal to the most base and unhealthy interests of those wishing to watch it. Mmm. Tasty.
I've watched my fair share of violence and bloodshed, and shock-horror- I don't abhor it.- However, there is a huge chasm of difference between situations and historical stories that move you - together with character development which allows you to get involved on an emotional level, and a fairground of exploitative torture or sexual depravity for its own sake.
I wish, in all honesty that some of these movies had never been made. The trouble with censoring these kind of movies is that, well you can't. For starters, censorship is associated with dictatorship - and that has everyone up in arms... however - doesn't extreme sexual depravity and sadism fall under a different category in censorship? If it doesn't - maybe it should? It's hardly "keeping vital information from the masses" now is it? Unless you want to learn how to sadistically torture and kill that is. Hey, maybe you do...who am I to judge?
Unfortunately, as we well know the standard audience for movies of this nature feel even more determined to stand up for freedom of expression, to see what all the fuss was about, or to “test” their own mental/emotional strength (this movie won't break ME) and you can bet that the movie is marketed in a sensationalist fashion as "the one movie they don't want you to see!" and the film gets even more exposure than it would have in the first place.
And the film-maker stands up for his "artistic integrity"
...whatever that means nowadays.
And so it goes on.
I guess the question I've led myself to through all this is the following: When cruelty or sexual depravity for its own sake, whether real or acted by other people, is considered entertainment, shouldn't this make alarm bells ring somewhere in our psyche?
I know it does for me.
On other genres: I enjoy the occassional war movie immensely, I also love most psychological thrillers. I like dramas, romantic comedies and I can get kicks from genuine horror, but torture porn, and its brethren gets a big thumbs down from me.
What about you guys?