The phrase ‘torture porn’ has been used as a label of convenience for the recent spate of films which for many commentators seem to have little point beyond inflicting violent, prolonged death on their protagonists.
Of course elaborately contrived and terrible deaths have always been a feature of the horror genre, as for example the grotesquely baroque demises in the Dr Phibes films.
And so I’m asking myself, if we have ‘torture porn’ then, purely within a horror film context, do we also have ‘torture erotica’, and if so what films would qualify for such a categorisation?
To paraphrase an old and cherished cliche, is one gorehound’s porn another gorehound’s erotica?
And I’m not using ‘torture erotica’ as a tag for this post, as it could pull in entirely the wrong crowd 🙂
