Continuing Evolution Of Torture Porn

'Saw' was probably the first torture porn flick. It was followed by 'Hostel', simply a variation on a theme. After that came a series of imitations and sequels, each one doing progressively worse business. Well, let's face it. These flicks were getting a bit on-the-nose. Been there, done that. Hollywood took the hint and created a new type of movie -- the thinking man's torture porn, gussied up with top-drawer production value and (what I'm sure is) sharp writing that hits every turning point with snap to spare.

This is the first trailer I've seen for 'Untraceable', a glossy looking psych-thriller with Diane Lane directed by Gregory Hoblit. Movie is about a killer who imprisons people to be elaborately killed on a website which is...untraceable. Lane is the head of a team which tracks cyber-criminals, who becomes a target herself.

In the above still a man is restrained in the middle of multiple banks of heat lamps. He is being televised live on the internet. The more people that hit the site the more heat lamps are turned on. The text at the bottom of the screen reads '...the more that watch, the faster he cooks'.

That's right. This man is, apparently, depicted as being cooked alive while thousands of people watch online. Told you torture porn was here to stay. (Some observers breathed a sigh of relief when 'Captivity' did so badly, claiming the gorn fad had run its course). Sorry...I don't mean to gloat, but this fad ain't going away.

I don't know if I necessarily think it's a bad thing. The public craves increasingly more violent movies to numb them to an increasingly violent world. Who is to blame for all the sick headlines? Well, us, I guess. Society feeds on it. Every generation becomes more inured to violence, even as it evolves into stranger and more graphic expressions, whether it be on the nightly news or at the local movie theater matinee. An inescapable cycle.

I recently wondered how Hollywood would manage infuse fresh blood into the genre. Things were looking grim indeed for the torture set. Even hardcore fans were taking a pass, leaving movies like 'Captivity' high and dry. Have to give them credit. Rather than creating another watered-down copy of a copy, the torture-fest of 'Untraceable' is pretty original -- it's made public, brought to you, and me, and anyone else with the ubiquitous internet connection. We even have the opportunity to actively participate. Now, don't judge. While hitting the site increases the level of torture inflicted on the victim, doing so would appeal to both the sadist and the compassionate. The cruelest of us would hit the site to inflict pain, while the most angelic would do so to put the poor slob out of his misery. You got to admit that's got built-in cool factor.

Makes me wonder what could possibly be next. What twisted version of this bizarre escapist fantasy could follow suit? In case Hollywood is running out of cool new cutting-edge storylines, here's an idea for the folks in Tinsel Town (feel free to use this): A game show where contestants allow themselves to be tortured with increasing severity in order to win prizes. Sort of like Fear Factor, except it would be called 'Torture Factor'.

How about this: A national lottery where the winner gets hundreds of millions but only if s/he agrees to be tortured in some gruesome manner. (Of course, they would be guaranteed to survive -- I mean, who would agree to be tortured to death. That would be stupid).

Let's see. How about: In a world where violence and crime is out of control, criminals are sentenced to torture instead of imprisonment or death. (I like this one. It has a ring to it).

Um...wait. Give me a minute. How about: A genetically engineered virus escapes from a lab. The infected torture themselves to death. (Okay, maybe we're not ready for that yet. A 'Torture-Comedy'...the Tor-Com. Give it ten years).

I guess we'll just have to wait and see. Whatever form or structure is next in the torture porn evolution I'm sure it will be wicked. Granted, there will be those inevitable gore-fests for the brutish and literal-minded amongst us who simply want to see people tortured in a basement, abandoned warehouse, or other such run of the mill torture chamber. Let's hope up and coming screenwriters will find ways of making torture inventive and entertaining.

Torture-Porn Doesn’t Captivate Audiences

It’s a bit sad that the ‘Torture-Porn’ genre ever got any traction in the first place, but such is the evolution of things. With ‘Captivity’ doing so poorly in its debut this weekend (and the last installment of 'Hostel' doing so badly) it looks like audiences have had their fill of movies about gruesome and slow ways to kill someone that you (or an antagonist who represents you in a movie) have kidnapped -- that is, until the next iteration of this plot that’s just different enough we have to see it.

The names being invented to describe this new sub-genre are far more engaging than the movies themselves. I like the combo of: gore + porn = ‘Gorn’. It’s not as pretty looking as torture-porn but it’s more fun -- short, sweet, and doesn't require that you type the word 'torture' so much -- nice.

'Captivity' may not have done well, but this Pandora’s box has been opened and there’s no turning back. Each year from now on we can look forward to the next installment(s) of mindless, pointless, and almost plot-less excursions into the juvenile fantasy (posing as motion picture entertainment) of kidnapping and torture. And every year the blogosphere will object, but less and less vehemently as time passes, until, years from now, no one bothers to mention that the latest gorn is nothing more than an exploration of drugging, kidnapping, torture, and rape.

We find ourselves undergoing the inevitable decline that awaits all societies (in the past or future, on this planet or another) whose members possess that double-edged attribute known as Human Nature. I don't suppose anyone is to blame for that. Whatta you gonna do?

Grim Future

According to Mikita Brottman, a horror movie scholar (educated at Oxford no less), the current splatter fests are no different from the ones from yesteryear except they aren't played campy anymore.

Brottman cites a notorious 1980 exploitation flick called Cannibal Holocaust, along with Sola, by the art-house director Pier Paolo Pasolini. And starting back in the 1960s, Brottman says, Herschell Gordon Lewis was cranking out makeshift B pictures like Blood Feast.

"Exactly the same things happen," Brottman says. "People have their legs cut off and tongues pulled out and eyeballs exploding -- but they seem really ridiculous and laughable, whereas the movies now seem really visceral and shocking. But the same things are being done to the body."

I have to agree. In general, movies today have plot elements that are similar to cutting edge horror movies from decades past, but today's movies have become so serious and their depictions so heartless, the fun has been replaced with what seems like nothing more than an implied warning -- 'We live in a world where this could happen to you'...

I'm a big fan of the 'Abominable Dr. Phibes' series which starred a brilliantly wicked Vincent Price as a man seeking revenge for the death of his wife. The Phibes movies featured some of the goriest possible killings but they were carried out with a wink and a nod by a passionate organ-playing Dr. Phibes who wore thick make-up and a flowing cape -- not the kind of movie character you could take too seriously. Price's portrayal was intelligent, hammed-up and a lot of fun for the kids -- it was always clear he was 'play acting'. Phibes may have been abominable, but his movies were not an abomination.

In the sequence from 'Hostel II' (clip available on the same page as the NPR story) a girl (played by Heather Matarazzo) is suspended upside down and naked, with her hands bound behind her back. She has been prepped for torture by two attendants who, after making sure all is just so, leave her to await the arrival of the torturer (a person who has paid a lot of money for the privilege). Before they leave they turn the lights off, which induces screams of terror from the victim. The sequence does not have a dramatic presentation, plays real, is typical for this kind of movie, and makes me wonder what the future holds for the genre.

It's easy to trash the directors who craft such scenes (and a lot bloggers are enthusiastically voicing their disgust with the Splat Pack), but the fact is these movies make huge profits and producers can't be blamed for meeting the demands of the market. It's probably better to question the psychology of the audiences which make these movies so popular. Whatever the societal cause may be, the effect seems clear -- we need increasingly violent and gory movies to immunize ourselves from the very real threats we see in the daily news. These movies mitigate the audience's dread of the real world.

Will anything stop the escalation? Of course, we all know, nothing will. It doesn't seem like entertainment anymore, and there's a good reason for that.