Torture Porn is a thing now. It has been for awhile, actually, and our culture has accepted that. I had hoped it was but a morbid fad, but on the Torture Porn front, I had no such luck. Someday soon, "Torture Porn" could become a puzzle on Wheel of Fortune. It wouldn't be all that shocking. Two words, eleven letters, and the category is Thing.
Torture Porn is a genre of film known for its prolonged homicides and bleak outlook on life. The first installments of films such as Saw and Hostel combined to generate almost 200 million dollars at the box office, and both have spawned a number of lucrative sequels.
For entertainment purposes, I suppose, mankind has evolved to pair the notions of torture and porn—and with very successful results.
At some point, it seems, it was determined that both horror and skin-flicks had become tacky and old-fashioned.
The murders committed by the likes of Michael Myers and Jason must have been too sudden to thrive into the new millennium. An ice-pick thrust to the heart? A beheading with a machete? Sure, some horny coeds suffered grizzly deaths due to such heinous attacks, but those kinds of killings are done in ten seconds. What's going to fill the lengthy void between sprees of blood-lust? Characters? Plot? Suspense? Lame. Yawn. Booorrring!
Movie-goers demanded—or at least consented to—drawn-out, epic, and wholly excruciating murder scenes. No more of that quick savagery would suffice. The public longed for ten-minute murder scenes in which the victim was not only deprived of the fleeting hope of survival but also demeaned at great length and shown no mercy by a sadist intent on maximizing suffering.
In music terms, this is a bit like bidding good riddance to punk-rock homicides, which are swift and straightforward, and embracing jam-band homicides, which are protracted and prone to noodling. Like gushing hippies (minus the desire for peace), Saw and Hostel aficionodos no doubt exchanged glowing reviews in the wake of their theater experiences.
“Did you get a load of that three-minute sickle solo? That unrelenting shredding of limbs that avoided all major arteries? Massive blood loss, bro, but not enough to kill that helpless naked chick.”
“Agreed. Sickness personified, dude. And that snapping of the collar bone with a monkey-wrench? Crunchy. Bitch was crying all hysterical-like for so long before she finally croaked. So epic!”
I guess porn has become obsolete, too. Good-looking, well-endowed men and women having wild sex on camera? The formula became stale. Porn had to be enhanced...but how? Skimpier thongs? Faker boobs? More Kardashians? No, no, no! Such dull suggestions fail to satisfy the appetites of real 21st century wretches.
Thankfully, somewhere in Beverly Hills, a degenerate pondering the problem at length snapped his fingers with triumphant vigor. His once-weary eyes widened and brightened, for he had been struck by an epiphany.
“I've got it...Torture!” he exclaimed. “We must give porn that much-needed shot in the arm by adding torture! Torture Porn. Boo-ya!”
His idea flourished when put into practice, too. The Saw and Hostel series have jointly grossed nearly a billion dollars worldwide—and keep in mind, a billion dollars is more than a mere “shit-load of money.” A billion dollars marks the threshold of “a super shit-load of money.” Hell, these Torture Porns are on the verge of earning “a mega shit-load of money.” The Torture Porn pioneers could pool their fortunes to buy Greece if they felt like it.
People are making what may soon qualify as a mega shit-load of money by showing people being tortured by people to many, many people across the globe--and that is both depressing and disgusting.
Torture and porn don't belong together. They're ill-matched, like lard and chocolate. Some couples actually get off on Torture Porn. It's repulsive. Imagine the conversations they have.
“Honey, did you get a chance to watch that Saw 13 DVD I ordered from NetFlix?”
“Sure did. Oh, that Torture Porn took my breath away.”
“You said it, Maude. That half-hour lawn-dart massacre? Mmm. Since the children have gone to bed, let me be candid with you: That got me rock hard.”
“Yup! Why, I felt so hot and tingly not long after the opening credits, and that skull-drilling to the brain just about made me want to burst.”
"Indeed. I decided to rub one out at that point in the film.”
“George, you devil! Oh, make love to me, cuddle-bunny.”
End twisted scene.
Now, I'll get to the torture half of this vile pairing later, and be concise about it. As for porn, I will concede that it sometimes degrades women, glorifies sleeping around with just about anyone, and tends to present a certain body-type that other women cannot and should not feel that they have to compete with in order to attract her ideal man. That's true.
On the other hand, to most men, beautiful naked women are pretty much the greatest sight to behold on this planet, immensely pleasing to the body and mind, unsurpassed in beauty by a sunset at the Grand Canyon or a lunar eclipse or whatever inferior fluff you care to compare beautiful naked women to. Admittedly, plan-A is to find one to date and perhaps even marry. Plan-B is porn, though, and strangely enough, guys with thriving plan-A's still resort regularly to plan-B. Porn exists in part because nothing carries as much artistic power as a beautiful naked woman does--and even guys who dismiss that assessment as pretentious bullshit aren't likely to deny that chicks are just so damn hot.
And that's my ambivalent defense of porn.
As for torture, well...torture sucks. If you want to kill someone, be quick about it. Only sadists drag it out. To hell with sadists. They're horrible, subhuman creatures.
I'm a fair-weather fan of Team Jesus, too, and I hate the notion of watching that swell guy get tortured so much that I have never bothered to watch The Passion of the Christ.
I'm OK with my preference of regular porn over Torture Porn. It's natural to have a libido, but the same is not true about craving depictions of the worst kind of human suffering conceivable.
Torture Porn is a heaping, mega-load of morally toxic bullshit.
Hostel Schmostel.
You want a catchier conclusion?!
Don't see Saw; Saw sucks.
Meh. Good enough. And I'll try to come up with some pejorative words that rhyme with Human Centipede in time for part five.
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