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The Merits of Torture Porn

Thursday, May 1st, 2008 at 11:47 am by Jami

Frontier(s) is a French torture porn flick getting an extremely limited theatrical release on May 9 in Austin, Boston, Denver, Detroit, Los Angeles, New York, Philadelphia, Phoenix, and Seattle. It will be released on DVD on May 13. Originally slated to run as part of the 8 Films to Die For, Horrorfest 2007, Frontier(s) was given an NC-17 rating and pushed back to release this year unrated. If you’re into this sort of thing, stop by the website and check out the unrated trailer. This movie is fucking brutal.

So, let’s talk about the merits of torture porn. Are there any?

It might help to first take a step back and discuss the merits of the horror genre in general. Horror movies provide a safe environment to confront the darkest regions of the human condition. What we see on the screen is often terrifying (or cheesy depending on the quality of film) and yet our fear is temporary because in our heads we know we’re just watching a movie. We are scared and comforted all in the same space.

In that light, horror movies are full of awesome. We get to spend some time with our dark side and then go home to our comfy lives.

What does this mean for torture porn?

Extreme brutality. Ultra violence. Hyper sexuality. Unfettered exploitation. Torture porn. Horror turned way past eleven. Clearly, box office numbers indicate a market for this genre. The Saw series regularly kicks ass at the box office. The Hostel flicks did fairly well. I’m sure Frontier(s) will sell out in the cities it’s playing and have decent DVD sales. If audiences couldn’t stomach such gruesome scenes, they wouldn’t buy tickets.

Perhaps it takes more than just a scary mask and some makeup to frighten modern audiences. Effects have gotten so good that we’ve come to expect an unprecedented high level of realism from our fiction. Personally, I think many of the classic horror films stand up even with their classic effects, but The Exorcist might not cut it these days. I suspect that this new wave torture porn is a reaction to those expectations.

I’m not sure it’s proper to discount entire genres of film. I personally loath the buddy comedy, but that doesn’t make it any less valid. Torture porn has its place on the extreme end of the continuity of horror. It’s certainly not for everyone (I dare say it’s not for a majority). Or this could all be intellectual rubbish and torture porn really is nothing more than adolescent fantasies gone horribly wrong.

What say you, mighty readers? Torture porn. Complete rubbish or worthwhile for some?

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This entry was posted on Thursday, May 1st, 2008 at 11:47 am and is filed under Movies, Horror. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

5 Responses to “The Merits of Torture Porn”

  1. AvatarSteve
    Posted: May 1st, 2008 at 1:08 pm
    1

    Hard to say. If I remember correctly, there was a series of videos back in the day called Faces of Death. All it contained was stock films of people being executed, tortured, shot, burned alive, etc. I can’t say for sure if there was anything sexual about it (I had to sneak into the local video store’s “back room” when I was a kid to see the boxes) but it seems this genre has been around for a good long while.

    People are voyeuristic by nature. Can’t be helped. But will the film have any value beyond the shocking content? Will ethics and morality be examined? Is the film’s mere existence supposed to be a comment on society in some sort of Post Modern joke?

    I probably won’t see it. More of a “Silence of the Lambs” type of guy, myself. Gripping psychological horror with bits and pieces of gore and violence thrown in to accentuate the setting. If the film is more along that vein, I might give it a shot, but from what I read it’ll be relegated to the back rooms of video stores, which don’t really exist anymore thanks to Netflicks.

  2. AvatarJack T Robyn
    Posted: May 1st, 2008 at 7:31 pm
    2

    I always to in Saw from a more psychological angle. And, as that began to fade, from more of a puzzle-type angle (if ONLY they’d follow the RULES!)

    But, grabbing into my sack of watched fils, I suppose Rob Zombie’s two flicks might go in line with this kind of genre. While I find the mutilation itself somewhat distasteful, the conflict and the desparation surrounding it can often be quite compelling.

  3. AvatarLeto
    Posted: May 2nd, 2008 at 3:28 am
    3

    The director of this is the guy who did Hitman.

    I’ll skip it, I have no real interest in gore-horror.

  4. AvatarWayne
    Posted: May 2nd, 2008 at 8:47 am
    4

    Not a horror fan, not for me. The biggest horror film for me is John Carpenter’s The Thing, and I think I have one of the Aliens films on laserdisc. As long as the film doesn’t break the law, show it. I won’t see it, not that it would come to a place like Las Cruces (we only have about 20 screens, including a video theater).

  5. AvatarKunoichi
    Posted: May 2nd, 2008 at 9:24 am
    5

    I’m definitely not going to see this, and as I’ve never seen any torture porn, I’m not going to comment on what merits it may or may not have.

    However, I’ve found that horror is one of those genres of film where the vast majority of it is, well, as you say, “intellectual rubbish” and “adolescent fantasies gone wrong”. When it falls into that spectrum, I think it might be best if the filmmakers placed a limit on just what they show, because they are presenting a positive experience without any thought or message in it.
    On the other hand, what horror films *do* actually intend to examine society or man’s darkest aspects, usually are profoundly disturbing as well as fun to watch (I say this despite finding horror movies pretty damn boring).

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