"Torture porn" - is that it?

[Detroit City]

1980s exploitation film... It's about an anthropologist who goes to an area where two cannibal tribes are fighting to find a lost team of docu makers... Gets the footage they recorded, takes it back with him, watches it and it's all incredibly fucked up basically. Often rated a bit higher than many exploitation films because it has a bit of thought to it. It is very fucked up though.

But yes, as DC (the other one) says, it is disgusting and morally dubious, just echoing the OP's sentiment that this sort of the thing is really nothing new, and in fact is sometimes not as bad.

sort of like the Faces of Death movies??

 

[Cid]

Haven't seen them so couldn't say tbh.

 

[FridgeMagnet]

sort of like the Faces of Death movies??

No, those pretend to be real. Cannibal Holocaust doesn't pretend to be other than a story, though some of the things involving animals apparently actually happened for real.

 

[Hi-ASL]

It certainly proves that people nowadays aren't intrinsically any more fucked up of course.

But the extreme has become the mainstream. Censorship has receded and we seem much more blase about screen violence now. I'm pretty squeamish, but I watch it anyway and quietly worry about what effect it's having, especially on the young and the impressionable.

 

[FridgeMagnet]

But the extreme has become the mainstream. Censorship has receded and we seem much more blase about screen violence now. I'm pretty squeamish, but I watch it anyway and quietly worry about what effect it's having, especially on the young and the impressionable.

I don't know if it's any more extreme than the mainstream previously though. Hostel is nowhere near Cannibal Holocaust - it's more like the Halloween films, just differently styled, with more concentration on individuals for a while than lots of random victims. But there's still the same level of brutality and gore.

 

[TheHoodedClaw]

I dunno - it horrified me and I'm not easily spooked cos I've seen so many supposed horror films.

Me too. I don't know why, but some of Wolf Creek really disturbed me. Perhaps it just caught me on a bad day or something. I usually don't mind gore in a film and I've witnessed some horrible gore in real life, but that film had a real downer effect on me.

 

[Bernie Gunther]

http://www.bfi.org.uk/features/salo/

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

I'm not really a horror or gore afficionado, but I take an interest when there are moral panics around, and I've posted previously about the Hostels and so on which are routinely called "torture porn", so I decided to watch a bit. Not whole films, mostly sections, cos I'm too lazy to torrent the whole lot and don't enjoy the genre enough to spend hours watching, but I went out with the intention of getting at least a representative sample of scenes. You can find a lot of this stuff just on YouTube, let alone other sites.

I can't help but think "is that it then?" This is supposed to be some horrible new development in popular cinema? I really can't see any huge difference. (By the way, I don't mind the term "torture porn" actually, I think it's quite catchy and the idea of the portrayal of violence and suffering being similar to sexual pornography has a fairly solid basis, but that's not really what I'm posting about here.)

Stylistically, fine, I can see that there are differences, but you expect that to change over the years, different styles emerge and become popular. In terms of the content or, well, the general "gruesomeness" of what's there, I can't see anything radically new in principle. Some films might be open to accusations of misogyny or being basically nasty and sadistic, but that's hardly anything novel in horror.

It's just the 2000s "video nasties" isn't it?





By the way I have to say that based on even the little I saw, Wolf Creek would put the shits up me. I'm sure I could watch Hostel 2 while eating lunch quite happily though.

There was better torture porn back in the Seventies.

 

[Balbi]

Stick on ITV4, it's been on nearly an hour but The Ipcress File is on. Quality sixties spy work, a Bond antidote. And glasses pr0n.

 

[Kid_Eternity]

Watched the first Saw and quite liked it, turned off Wolf Creek half way through because it was boring as hell and haven't seen Hostel. I like violent or horrifying movies but they have to be actually good as well to keep me interested. The graphic imagery or subject matter isn't enough to make a film imo....

 

[Detroit City]

There was better torture porn back in the Seventies.

are you speaking of the "snuff" flicks?

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

are you speaking of the "snuff" flicks?

No.

 

[electrogirl]

I really like the Hostel films. I really do. First time I saw Hostel I nearly hyperventilated, I'd never seen anything so horrible in my life. And I liked being horrified.

I also kind of like the premise, because it's something people could actually believe. That people would pay to torture someone and not get caught.

The second on is a bit sillier imo, trying to humanise the torturers was ridiculous and turns out properly cliche. And the script is hilarious..'you're not that guy, you are NOT that guy'

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

I really like the Hostel films. I really do. First time I saw Hostel I nearly hyperventilated, I'd never seen anything so horrible in my life. And I liked being horrified.

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

Horror, killing etc, is the new sex.

 

[electrogirl]

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

 

[electrogirl]

a bit of saliva dribble came out when i first saw hostel. and that is true. it went on my boyfriend's jumper.

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

a bit of saliva dribble came out when i first saw hostel. and that is true. it went on my boyfriend's jumper.

From what: fear, excitement?

 

[electrogirl]

From what: fear, excitement?

shock i think. i'd never seen anything like it before.

 

[electrogirl]

i'm watching Hostel right now as it goes. A girl has her eyeball hanging out.

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

i'm watching Hostel right now as it goes. A girl has her eyeball hanging out.

That chinese girl?

That's the silliest scene in the movie.

 

[electrogirl]

That chinese girl?

That's the silliest scene in the movie.

yeah the makeup is so crap it's quite funny.

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

yeah the makeup is so crap it's quite funny.

If you really want to be grossed out, get some of those old seventies serial killer movies.

 

[electrogirl]

If you really want to be grossed out, get some of those old seventies serial killer movies.

recommend please. horror is a new genre for me. i avoided it for many years.

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

http://www.hysteria-lives.co.uk/hysterialives/Hysteria/the_dark_ride.htm

 

[Sweaty Betty]

hammer house of horror used to do female victim very well at the time.....

 

[Hi-ASL]

recommend please. horror is a new genre for me. i avoided it for many years.

Selected splatter film directors



Herschell Gordon Lewis:

• Blood Feast (1963)
• Two Thousand Maniacs! (1964)
• Color Me Blood Red (1965)
• The Gruesome Twosome (1967)
• The Wizard of Gore (1970)
• The Gore Gore Girls (1972)
• Blood Feast 2: All U Can Eat (2002)

George Romero:

• Night of the Living Dead (1968)
• Dawn of the Dead (1978)
• Day of the Dead (1985)
• Land of the Dead (2005)
• Diary of the Dead (2007)

Stuart Gordon:

• Re-Animator (1985)
• From Beyond (1986)
• Castle Freak (1995)
• Dagon (2001)

Lucio Fulci:

• Zombi 2 (1979)
• City of the Living Dead (1980)
• The Beyond (1981)
• The House by the Cemetery (1981)
• The New York Ripper (1982)
• A Cat in the Brain (Nightmare Concert, 1990)

Sam Raimi:

• The Evil Dead (1982)
• Evil Dead II (1987)

Frank Henenlotter:

• Basket Case (1982)
• Brain Damage (1987)

Peter Jackson:

• Bad Taste (1987)
• Braindead/Dead Alive (1992)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Splatter_movie

 

[Geri]

Wolf Creek is a proper horror film in that horrifies you. Job done. Excellent movie.

I agree - maybe it's because it's based on a true story and could actually happen.

 

[mentalchik]

I still don't get why people want to watch such things as Hostel and Saw etc etc.........



(shivers)


nasty !