A God amongst men once said, “Before you judge me, try hard to love me.” So I ask you all to not judge me for wondering what the hell happened to torture porn?! It’s a legit question.
“So is asking a stranger if they’re a size 14.”
( Shut it, Bill! )
I came across Hostel on Netflix. Seeing the poster to Hostel really sends me back to a different time. I was seriously tripping hard on a radical wave of nostalgia for a good ten minuteses from my past trigger that feeling but when it does it is freaking awesome. And the reason why Hostel is a lost toy for me has to do with the time period…
The year was 2005. The world was still fresh for me. I was a sophomore in high school and everything was pretty freaking sweet. Why? Because I saw a fucking movie that changed how I saw horror. The Eli Roth masterpiece, Hostel dropped in the stupid cold of January.
My dad dropped me and Frank off at the movie theater. We went in with smiles and left looking like we saw our parents porno tape.
For the entirety of the winter, I walked around the world contemplating life, art and the meaning of horror. It was awesome. My horror education took yet another massive step into higher learning. That feeling of something new. Something WTF really makes me miss good ol’ torture porn. And that isn’t a bad thing.
After Hostel, I found Wolf Creek ( a huge fav of mine), Wes Craven’s Last House on The Left, Italian horror gems like Deep Red, Torso, and Pieces, Peter Jackson’s Brain Dead, and eventually landed my way to films like Turistas, the entire Texas Chainsaw series, and eventually the Human Centipede series. Interestingly enough, Human Centipede II was the last time this torture porn genre shocked me. Suddenly, my roughly 6-year eduction into torture porn ended.
So I ask myself, upon a deep nostalgia trip, what the hell happened to torture porn? Have we become to damn sensitive as a culture? Or have we simply out WTF’d ourselves already?
With the current stream of real-life shocks on the daily, I think torture porn, over the top, no-nonsense violence is needed to let off a little steam. Don’t get me wrong, we did get a few gems like The Green Inferno, but they are few and far between. I don’t want a cell phone horror flick. I want a true Hollywood release of something painful. Or do I want it? Am I just drowning in the nostalgia of Hostel? Was it a perfect example of one’s teenage experiences? I have no idea.
All I know is that I may just watch Hostel 1-2 and Wolf Creek while the world continues to be attacked by microbial assholes.
Sad Drac Out!
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