In the Name a specific movie you won’t watch for love or money thread, jordanr2 wondered why so many people dismissing “torture porn” films (Saw, Hostel) out of hand. I thought the question would easily derail that thread, so I made this one.
Thanks for making this thread. I think a discussion of “torture porn” should probably begin with a definition (and it should be an objective one, not presuming a filmmaker’s or an audience’s motives or attitudes out of hand).
Do people who enjoy this genre object to it being referred to as “torture porn”? I’ve never seen the Saw films, but the marketing makes it very clear that they explicitly feature various human body parts being removed, usually by the person, under threat of death. Am I missing some part of the film?
It’s not just graphic violence. The Michael Haneke film Funny Games could fit comfortably in the description, in spite of the fact that most of the violence occurs off-screen.
Like I said, I think to talk about “this genre,” we need to define what “this genre” actually is. The term “torture porn” is unfairly biased - as a genre label, it assumes that the primary draw of the films under consideration is titillation from seeing torture, which I don’t think is necessarily the case at all.
I mean, yeah, the Saw films do include torture. So did Casino Royale, and Seven, and Reservoir Dogs. I don’t see why we can’t just think of movies as thrillers, or straight horror films - why the additional (and unnecessary) aspersion of calling them “torture porn”?
It’s funny actually. The original Saw (the only one I’ve seen) has less “torture” than your average episode of 24. Yet, it’s considered the forebear of the torture porn movement. I’ll never understand it. It’s no gorier than Seven or Silence of the Lambs, it’s just a lot more uneven (and parts of it are downright stupid), so people feel no problems slapping the torture porn label on it.
I’ve not seen Seven, but I have seen Casino Royale and Reservoir Dogs. The difference is that the scenes existed in the context of completely different genres. They were supposed to be shocking in the context of spy and heist movies. Casino Royale was about James Bond being such a bad ass that he could survive even brutal torture; the scene in Reservoir Dogs existed to show what a psychopath Mr. Blonde was. Very violent, but not the purpose of the films.
I don’t know the definitions, but Reservoir Dogs is just fine, though I can’t watch the Saw films.
And getting swatted in the nuts a few times hardly compares with being forced to mutilate yourself.
Just parts of it? The entire thing is downright stupid. 
And that’s the point I’m making about Saw. There’s very little torture and it’s much more of a thriller than people give it credit for.
Well yes, that’s why I stopped after the first one. But there are seeds of a good movie there.
I don’t see any way to know for sure what the purpose of a film is. We can pretend to know - “oh, Eli Roth says he’s just a horror director, but we all really know that he and his fans get off on seeing people tortured” - but speculation isn’t the same as knowledge. Similarly, one could argue that the Casino Royale scene is there because Martin Campbell thought the audience would be perversely titillated by seeing this happen to the attractive Daniel Craig, or that the Reservoir Dogs scene is there because Quentin Tarantino thought it’d be badass. I don’t think it’s safe to assume anything like this.
Agreed, and I actually think the second and third are more compelling than the first (after #3 the series kinda tanked for me).
As a rule, I stay away from depictions of torture in movies and TV shows. However, I was a big fan of 24, and enjoyed Casino Royale, even though the scene with Bond in the chair being hit caused me to close my legs and double over.
I’ve not seen any of the Saw or Hostel movies, but what came to mind with this thread was a recent episode of Criminal Minds. In this particular episode, a murderer burned the eyes of his victims with acid, and the corpses were shown on the ME’s table with holes where the eyes were. That was bad, and I was shaking my head (exposition indicated he’d stapled their eyes open first). What really did it for me was when the killer had tied his next victim in a chair, and was going to rip her tongue out.
I couldn’t watch that episode.
To answer the OPs question. I only find them engaging if there’s ultimately victims’ revenge. so… yeah… I basically need to know how it’s going to end before I’ll put up with any of it.
I don’t think even an explicit statement by the director is going to settle it once and for all, as everyone’s personal reaction to the work is the only one that really means anything. Haneke claims that Funny Games was about “subverting the audience’s expectations” while I’m of the opinion that he’s just an asshole (an opinion reenforced by his movie Cache)
I agree with the notion that the movie ‘Saw’ seemed to be a psychological suspenseful thriller with gore, rather than the more flagrant ‘Hostel’. However, I watched the 3rd Saw movie (i think) on tv recently and while not appalled by the violence, just didn’t find the quest to find different ways to kill people to be entertaining. It seemed juvenile at best and disturbed at worst. No more Saw movies for me. Nor Hostel 2, nor Final Destination 2,3,4,5,6,7,8.
Seven, however, is imho a masterpiece. Ying and yang baby.
Could ‘Red State’ have the label ‘torture porn’? I thought it was ace!
MiM
I think the best definition is via negitiva. It is Saw, Hostel; it is not Cube.
I am not interested in depictions of torture at all. I sped through them on 24 on my DVR, fast-forwarded through them on Casino Royale on my Blu-Ray player and I won’t even bother to watch Saw-style movies.