Torture Porn

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Torture Porn (German: "Torture-Porno"), more rarely torture horror , is a relatively young subgenre of horror films . A characteristic of torture porn film is that torture, explicit depictions of violence, humiliation and mutilation do not occur on the fringes of the plot, as in other films, but largely determine it. These do not serve a higher purpose within the action, such as punishing or forcing confessions, but are practically an end in themselves. Variety magazine called the genre “ one of the decade's most unexpected success stories ”.

term

Director Eli Roth (center) and the cast of Hostel at the premiere in Prague (2006)

The origins of torture porn go back to the 1970s and 1980s. At that time, as a sub-genre of the grindhouse , they were not very commercially successful and cheap productions, such as Die Rache der Kannibalen (1981, director: Umberto Lenzi ). However, in retrospect, these films can also be addressed as Torture Porn.

The term "Torture Porn" itself was coined in 2006 by the US film critic David Edelstein . He was also the first to compile the specific characteristics of the subgenre. Edelstein noted that a number of recent films such as The Devil's Rejects (2005, directed by Rob Zombie ), Saw (2004, directed by James Wan ), Wolf Creek (2005, directed by Greg McLean ), Hostel (2005 , Directed by Eli Roth ) and even The Passion of the Christ (2004, directed by Mel Gibson ) contained a high degree of sadism and explicitly put it on display in a brutal setting. However, unlike their predecessors, these films would have a much larger budget and would ultimately have reached the mainstream. Another difference to earlier horror films such as Scream (1996, director: Wes Craven ) would be that here teenagers are not punished by masked murderers for alleged misconduct, such as their propensity for promiscuity , but normal, completely innocent everyday people are attacked for no reason . The last victim would have almost always defeated the murderer so far ( Final Girl ), but now evil would triumph in the end. Even at the end of the film Hostel, the realization that you are in a world of potential serial killers does not allow for a real “ happy ending ”.

Some authors believe that the wave of new torture porn films began with the remake of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003, director: Marcus Nispel ). Others take the view that approaches to this trend could already be found a few years earlier in European films such as Tras el cristal (1987, directed by Agustí Villaronga ) or Funny Games (1997, directed by Michael Haneke ). And even before that, classics such as When Dying Is Everyone the First (1972, directed by John Boorman ) and The Last House on the Left (1972, directed by Wes Craven ) were filmed with very similar motifs. Since then, however, it has been consistently emphasized that the new phenomenon lies in the fact that these films are no longer just cheap productions, but rather elaborate screen spectacles with corresponding media attention:

"The brutal iconography of the seventies and eighties horror was washed from the dirty corners of the video stores into the mainstream of the 21st century, which is just as much of a concern for die -hard genre experts as it is for worried media guards."

- David Kleingers

The German film scholar Marcus Stiglegger rejected the term “torture porn” himself. This is ultimately a "globally rumored and never really defined battle term of a conservative press", which should discriminate against all films "that - sometimes more seriously, sometimes more trivially - deal with (bourgeois) people as beasts" . Instead, one should regard these films as a “reflection of social reality”. As an example, he cited that works like Jack Ketchum's Evil (2007, directed by Gregory M. Wilson ) or An American Crime (2007, directed by Tommy O'Haver ), which could fall under the category of "Torture Porn", ultimately come up true events. In his monograph on the topic, he chose the term "terror films" instead.

Interpretations

Physicality in horror films

Benjamin Moldenhauer, Christoph Spehr and Jörg Windszus emphasized: “The fascination with the body is a typical postmodern quality of contemporary horror film [...] The old story of the finite vulnerable body as a great equalizer comes into play here. People are much more similar inside than outside and more similar in their physicality than in the social hierarchy. ”Attacks on the body are fears of every recipient and trigger a physical reaction from them. In this respect the horror film is similar to the pornographic film. Stefan Geil also stated that the torture porn films were primarily about "the fear of physical harm, pain and ultimately death", but he suspected the current increased trend in this direction in contemporary "beauty and health madness ”.

Reflection on political realities

Edelstein had pointed out that current TV series such as 24 would virtually justify and popularize torture, and Stefan Geil noted that the subject of “torture” was very present in the media through Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib . Other mainstream films such as Casino Royale (2006, director: Martin Campbell ) or Syriana (2005, director: Stephen Gaghan ) would therefore increasingly contain torture, if only as a secondary aspect. Franz Everschor , the correspondent of the “ film-dienst ”, had already taken this view and described the events on the screens as “reflexes on real events”. Director Eli Roth never tire of emphasizing that the film Hostel was a reaction to the political situation in the USA . The journalist and film critic Rüdiger Suchsland summarized this with the words:

“The new films are also particularly interesting because everyday media images are reflected here on film. In these films there is an identical arbitrariness in dealing with people as you know from reports on US prisons. The individual loses his individuality, is reduced to his physicality as a naked lump of meat. But at the same time they are shifted into a distant context and can be culturally split off from their own experience. "

- Rüdiger Suchsland

Effectiveness on the recipient

Edelstein went further, however, insofar as he assumed that these films still addressed the viewer personally: "We fear serial killers as potential victims, but we still want to identify with their power." To explain, he cited a theory, which the writer used Will Self formulated it in 1996 in the essay "The American Vice". He said that scenes of torture would provoke a kind of “moral rapture”: “We lose the sense of which point of view we take. The sadist who tortures? The policeman [who is the victim in the selected example Reservoir Dogs ]? The innocent accomplice? It is this vacillation in the point of view that blames the viewer for complicity. Because in such a situation the author gives the viewer the moral responsibility for what happens on the screen - or rather blames it on them. ”This phenomenon is also compared to catharsis . The literary and media scholar Udo-Franke Penski explained: “You experience fear for a limited period of time while identifying with the victim, and with the help of character identification you can free yourself from your own latent feelings of fear. […] In addition, one can not only act out the role of the victim with a lust for fear, one can also identify with the perpetrator, the monster, the dark side. [...] In this case, the cathartic effect is a cleansing of aggression. "

The question of the success of Torture Porn was also asked by the German film scholar Marcus Stiglegger in his book “Terrorkino - Angst / Lust und Körperhorror”, referring to the sadomasochistic tendencies of the viewer: With recourse to psychoanalytic film analysis , he worked “a constant shift between Perpetrator and victim perspective ”from the audience. The viewer identifies himself on the one hand with the perpetrator as a seductive figure, on the other hand with the victim, whereby the confrontation with “the vulnerability of one's own physique and psyche” comes to the fore. On the other hand, Stiglegger, like Geil, Everschor and others, also refers to the real events of the past decade mentioned above that popularized the torture discourse in the media.

reviews

Darren Lynn Bousman, director of the Saw films

The torture porn films were mostly marketed based on the level of brutality that could be seen in them. Thus hostel advertised as a film "previously unknown cruelty and perversion." In some places, the explicit advertising posters for the films Hostel 2 (2007, director: Eli Roth) and Captivity (2007, director: Roland Joffé ) had to be removed again due to massive criticism. The trailers of these films, which promised, for example, “There is a place where your darkest, sickest fantasies are possible, where you can experience anything you desire”, were also sharply criticized. The first representatives of the new wave of torture porn were very good commercial successes. Hostel cost $ 5 million and grossed 80 million. Saw cost $ 1.2 million and even grossed $ 100 million. The sequel Saw III reached $ 164 million, 16 times the production cost. However, a study from 2009 came to the conclusion that the torture porn films ranked as commercial successes behind the relevant older subgenres of horror films in the long term. It is noticeable that, according to a survey by Variety magazine, a high proportion of the viewers of these films are female. Marcus Stiglegger described this as an “interesting phenomenon” and assumed: “These are films that can be sensually experienced, that try to throw us back on our existential corporeality with music and these drastic images. And that may also work because many, but by no means all of these victims are women, even among female viewers. So in a positive sense. "

The makers of the Saw sequels, on the other hand, refused to allow their films to belong to the torture porn genre. Director Darren Lynn Bousman said, "Take any of the Saw films, there is always a moral message in them ... put away all the blood scenes and you will still have a movie, while many other horror films that you are into Think away all blood scenes, nothing is left. And I think that's what makes the Saw films so good. ”Opinions on the torture porn films vary widely. Stephen King defended the film Hostel 2 in 2007 - good art would always make people feel uncomfortable. George A. Romero, on the other hand, admitted, “I don't understand the torture porn films. They lack the metaphor. ” Joss Whedon, on the other hand, was one of the most committed activists against the advertising campaigns of the torture porn films in 2007:“ It is not just a literal symbol of the decline of humanity. It is part of a cycle of violence and misogyny that takes something away from those who see it. ”Marcus Stiglegger judged the matter from a more practical perspective:“ The need to see these films, which obviously exists, also speaks that it is necessary for these films to exist. There really is a demand for these drastic scenarios. "

Footnotes

  1. ↑ Steffen Hantke (Ed.): American Horror Film: The Genre at the Turn of the Millennium. University Press of Mississippi, 2010, pp. 36, 48.
  2. ↑ a b c Stefan Geil: Torture Porn - The renaissance of torture. In: Inge Kirsner, Michael Wermke (Eds.): Passion Cinema - Existential film motifs in religious education and school worship. Göttingen 2009, p. 122.
  3. ^ Marc Graser: Decade changed film biz. From: variety.com on December 18, 2009, accessed May 19, 2019.
  4. ↑ a b c David Edelstein: Now Playing at Your Local Multiplex: Torture Porn. In: New York Magazine. January 28, 2006.
  5. ↑ Lars-Olav Beier: Great fun in the slaughterhouse . In: spiegel-online.de , July 24, 2006.
  6. ↑ a b Steve Murray: 'Horror porn' a bloody success. June 7, 2007.
  7. ↑ David Kleingers: Return of the horror march . In: spiegel-online.de , June 13, 2007
  8. ↑ Marcus Stiglegger: Terrorkino - Angst / Lust und Körperhorror , Berlin 2010, p. 16f
  9. ↑ Benjamin Moldenhauer / Christoph Spehr / Jörg Windszus: Law of the Dead - 10 theses on modern horror film , in: Benjamin Moldenhauer / Christoph Spehr / Jörg Windszus (eds.): On Rules and Monsters - Essays on Horror, Film and Society , Hamburg 2008 , P. 10
  10. ↑ a b Stefan Geil: Torture Porn - The Renaissance of Torture. In: Inge Kirsner, Michael Wermke (Eds.): Passion Cinema - Existential film motifs in religious education and school worship. Göttingen 2009, p. 121f.
  11. ↑ Franz Everschor: “Torture Porn” - scenes of torture in film and television become a hot topic. In: film service. 61 (2007), No. 6, p. 48f.
  12. ^ David Kleingers: Massacre in the Multiplex . In: spiegel-online.de , April 25, 2006.
  13. ↑ a b c Rüdiger Suchsland: An extremely large number of women watch these films - On the boom in torture in Hollywood , on: heise.de (June 26, 2007)
  14. ↑ Will Self: The American Vice. In: Karl French (Ed.): Screen Violence. London 1997.
  15. ↑ There are basically four theses when interpreting the modes of action of horror films: catharsist thesis (acting out of fears and power), inhibition thesis (deterrence through identification with the victim), stimulation thesis (disinhibition of the recipient and danger of imitation), habitualization thesis (regular consumption leads to brutalization of the recipient), cf. Manfred Riepe: Measures against violence - The dance of the devil and human dignity , in: Julia Köhne u. a. (Ed.): Splatter Movies - Essays on Modern Horror Film , Berlin 2005, pp. 168–170
  16. ↑ Udo Franke-Penski: Chainsaws, Lust and Tolerance - On the Consumability of Horror Fictions, in: Benjamin Moldenhauer / Christoph Spehr / Jörg Windszus (eds.): On Rules and Monsters - Essays on Horror, Film and Society , Hamburg 2008, p. 24f
  17. ↑ Marcus Stiglegger: Terrorkino - Angst / Lust und Körperhorror , Berlin 2010, p. 56.
  18. ↑ Reinhold Zwick: Dark, ugly and full of cunning? - faces of evil in the movie. In: Eva Marsal, Regina Speck (Ed.): Gut / Böse - Ein Januskopf? Frankfurt am Main 2008, p. 99.
  19. ↑ Kira Cochrane: For your entertainment . In: The Guardian. May 1, 2007.
  20. ↑ Steffen Hantke (Ed.): American Horror Film: The Genre at the Turn of the Millennium , University Press of Mississippi, 2010, p. 48.
  21. ^ Kara Warner: Saw IV Press Conference ( Memento June 16, 2011 in the Internet Archive ).
  22. ↑ Marc Olsen: Stephen King on the artistic merits of torture porn. In: Los Angeles Times. July 14, 2007.
  23. ↑ Katrina Onstad: Horror Auteur Is Unfinished With the Undead . (Translation from English) In: New York Times. February 10, 2008.
  24. ↑ Warren Kinsella: Torture porn's dark waters ( Memento October 12, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) In: National Post June 7, 2007, accessed May 19, 2019.

literature

  • David Edelstein: Now Playing at Your Local Multiplex: Torture Porn . In: New York Magazine. January 28, 2006.
  • Franz Everschor : “Torture Porn” - scenes of torture in film and television become hot topics. In: film service . 61 (2007), No. 6, p. 48f.
  • Stefan Geil: Torture Porn - The renaissance of torture. In: Inge Kirsner, Michael Wermke (Eds.): Passion Cinema - Existential film motifs in religious education and school worship. Göttingen 2009, ISBN 978-3-525-58004-2 , pp. 121-135.
  • Steffen Hantke (Ed.): American Horror Film - The Genre at the Turn of the Millennium. University Press of Mississippi, 2010, ISBN 978-1-60473-453-9 .
  • Benjamin Moldenhauer, Christoph Spehr, Jörg Windszus (Eds.): On Rules and Monsters - Essays on Horror, Film and Society , Argument Verlag, Hamburg 2008, ISBN 978-3-88619-472-8 .
  • Marcus Stiglegger : Terror cinema - fear / lust and body horror . Verlag Bertz & Fischer, Berlin 2010 (= Culture & Criticism , Vol. 1), ISBN 3-865-05701-2 .