Luke Thompson writes in the LA Weekly about horror films and the so called “torture porn” trend — also acknowledging The Passion of the Christ as such.
It’s a bit embarrassing that for all my jibber-jabber about zombies and horror movies I have not seen any of the Saw movies or Hostel or the like. Not out of lack of interest or critical puritanism but out of plain old laziness — I’ve seen plenty of the exploitation films they imitate (or emulate), and I understand the connections to current events, so what’s the rush? Those who know me and my interests are usually surprised I haven’t seen these divisive films. Others usually turn up their nose and say something to the effect of, “You aren’t missing anything.” In both cases, I’m interested to find out what the person I’m talking to thought of the movies. Because anything that stirs up so many opinions can’t be totally worthless.
Thompson’s article revisits a reliable thesis about horror cycles, what we respond to and why, and it astutely defines torture as listening to critics who won’t shut up about how abominable torture films are. The whole thing reminds me I should get around to seeing a couple of these things lest I become all talk.
