Character Snuff
Torture Porn Horror – A Females View of This Extreme Horror Genre by Irene Carson
There is something cathartic about a good horror movie. The suspense and terror are often accompanied by scenes of either blatant or repressed sexuality. Nastassia Kinski’s character in the remake of “Cat People” must suppress her sexual feelings or she will change into a panther. The movie “Scream” is famous for its “rules”, one of which is that any character (especially teenaged and college-aged characters) that has exciting, pre-marital sex in a horror movie will die before the credits roll.
Dr. Helen Fisher, an anthropologist who studies human sexuality and love, said that there is a tie between fear and sexual arousal. The hormone dopamine comes into play when we are frightened. The emotions involved with fear are similar to the feelings involved in sexual arousal. Fisher says that, rather than roses and a nice dinner, it might be more exciting to take your date to a horror movie if you hope to get lucky that night. In an article for iVillage, Fisher said that “the novelty of a dangerous situation you’d see in a horror movie or after trying a slightly risky, adrenaline-fueled activity together can also feed dopamine levels and make him want to feel emotionally closer to you via sex.” Some of the best horror movies, such as the Nastassia Kinski “Cat People”, the original “The Haunting”, and “The Legend Of Hell House”, have strong sexual overtones along with the terror. We jump into our partner’s arms at the thrilling scenes, elevating our sexual arousal.
The appeal of horror films is that we control our level of terror. We can always avert our eyes, leave the theatre, or turn off the TV. We can remind ourselves that it is only a movie. We know what we are seeing is not real, and we can enjoy the thrill of being scared, yet being in full control of our situation. Real life doesn’t always allow that kind of control. Quite often in these films, the hero or heroine survive the terror in the end.
Over the past year or two, it has been difficult to find good horror movies. It was hard to pinpoint exactly what it was that seemed so wrong with the newest crop of terror. Serial killers had become very popular, but they can become boring very quickly. These new horror movies weren’t so much scary as gross and dehumanizing. The sexual aspects remained, but the violence was much more intense. There are only so many ways you can kill someone without going over the line into Grand Guignol. Granted, confusing sex with violence is nothing new in horror movies. “Re-animator” contains a famous scene of the decapitated head of a scientist performing cunnilingus on the female star, who is strapped naked to a table. That is oral rape, since the man is forcing himself on her against her will, plus she is tied to the table, unable to escape. The heroine of the cult classic “I Spit On Your Grave” is brutally raped for forty-five minutes in a voyeuristic, sexualized fashion. She gets her revenge by creatively killing off all of the men who had assaulted her. The movie is cathartic in that she takes control of her situation following her rape, and she exacts her revenge. The modern horror films don’t seem to do that. Creatively torturing and then killing people, especially women, just to do it over and over again gets old fast.
Or so I had thought.
The media has been following these types of movies, and calls them “torture porn”. Another term being bandied about but is not nearly as common is “gorno”, a portmanteau of “gore” and “porno”. New York Magazine ticked off a list of these movies – “The Devil’s Rejects”, “Saw”, “Wolf Creek”, “Hostel”, and even “The Passion of the Christ”. A screenwriter friend of the New York reporter thought that the trend might just be “a way of ratcheting up the stakes”. The reporter also noted that there is a masochistic as well as sadistic component to the mayhem. The sexual overtones are there, but the focus is on terrorizing, torturing, and then killing the main characters, especially female characters. These movies feel hopeless.
Modern tragedies do not affect the release of these films. Despite the shootings as Virginia Tech, Lionsgate released “Hostel: Part II” on June 8. This movie is about the torture killing of college students. Women are the main targets in torture porn. According to The Guardian, the most famous scene in the original “Hostel” was of “a man taking a blowtorch to a woman’s face, her eyeball coming out and dangling from the socket. Later, another character snips it off with some scissors.”
While the violence in these movies is obvious, also obvious is the sexual torture, especially of women. An article in The Guardian noted that “it’s the violence against women that’s most troubling, because it is here that sex and extreme violence collide.” Nubile young women are shown in various stages of undress, and they are tortured, sometimes sexually, and then killed. According to New York Magazine, Carol Clover described differences between torture porn and older slasher films in her book “Men, Women, and Chain Saws”. Clover said that “many hack-’em-ups are empowering; the “final girl” always slays the monster.” Sally in the original “Texas Chainsaw Massacre” gets away in the end. Adrienne Barbeau’s Stevie Wayne escapes the ghosts of lepers trying to kill her in “The Fog”. Jamie Lee Curtis slays villain Michael Myers in “Halloween” and its first sequel. Nothing of the sort happens in modern torture porn. Nicole remains trapped and cowering in “Rest Stop” after the audience watched her be physically and psychologically tortured for over two hours. She also ends up dressed only in her bra and torn jeans in the end, while covered with her own blood. Even the French have gotten into the act. We watch the hero and heroine of “Ils” (“Them”) attempt in vain to survive their home invasion only to die in the end. The identity of their killers is an especially grisly twist that I won’t identify in case readers plan to see the movie or the American version, “The Strangers”, starring Liv Tyler. These movies also have the cache of supposedly being based on a true story. The “final girls” in “Wolf Creek” and “The Devil’s Rejects” also die grisly deaths after hours of torture.
The movie “Captivity” started getting negative press before the film released, which only gave it more attention. Nicole Sperling reported in The Hollywood Reporter that, “[i]n the wake of a public outcry against Los Angeles billboards and New York taxicab tops advertising the upcoming movie “Captivity” with images of the abduction, torture and death of a young woman, After Dark Films said it will take down the offending ads by 2 p.m. today.” After Dark and Lionsgate received scads of phone calls complaining about the “gratuitous depiction” of the film’s star, played by Elisha Cuthbert, being tortured and killed. The billboard ads were described as follows: “Abduction ” shows Cuthbert with a gloved hand over her face; “Confinement” features the actress behind a chain-link fence with a bloody finger poking through; “Torture” depicts Cuthbert’s face, covered in white gauze, with tubes shoved up her nose; and “Termination” shows her with her head thrown back, seemingly dead.” Cuthbert is a very attractive young woman who was recently voted the 10th sexiest woman in the world by young male readers of FHM magazine. The expression on her face in the “Termination” ad was frighteningly close to an expression of sexual orgasm, although she was clearly supposed to be dead in the ad. The “Termination” ad had also emphasized Cuthbert’s breasts, as if to sexualize her after death.
Josh Whedon, creator of “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” and “Firefly”, has written against the “torture porn” trend. He wrote a letter to the Motion Picture Association of America in protest of graphic promotional material of the movie “Captivity”. He wrote: “The advent of torture-porn and the total dehumanizing not just of women (though they always come first) but of all human beings has made horror a largely unpalatable genre.” He also wrote that the ad campaign “is not only a literal sign of the collapse of humanity, it’s an assault… this ad is part of a cycle of violence and misogyny that takes something away from the people who have to see it. It’s like being mugged.” Jill Soloway, one of the writers of the hit series “Six Feet Under”, described the ads as the most repulsive, horrifying, woman-hating, human-hating thing I have ever seen in public” and didn’t just represent “horror, this wasn’t just misogyny… It was a grody combo platter of the two, the torture almost a punishment for the sexiness. It had come from such a despicable inhuman hatred place that it somehow managed to recall Abu Ghraib, the Holocaust, porn and snuff films all at once.” The ads were taken down after much protest.
“Torture porn” may be a fad that is likely to fade. Horror movies that rely on plot and character development and atmosphere to scare the public will surge in popularity once again. Movie-goers deserve good, seasoned horror flicks like “The Ring”, “The Changeling”, and “The Devil’s Backbone” rather than a smorgasboard of bloody entrails and hacked body parts. Sex has a place in horror movies such as “The Vampire Lovers”. Horror movie fans may once again enjoy their popcorn with a good move that will genuinely scare and entice them, not make them feel dehumanized and violated.
About the Author
Irene Carson is the administrator for the Elvira Mistress of The Dark Horror Forum and horror movies message board located at http://mistressofthedarkhorrorforums.aimoo.com Discussion includes splatter horror, classic horror films, upcoming horror movies and the latest in horror news. You may repost this article as long as all links and original content are included.
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