More on Torture Porn

"Hostel is just part of a new subgenre of horror films which are so dehumanising, nasty and misogynist that they are collectively known either as "gorno" (a conflation of "gory" and "porno"), or, more commonly, as "torture porn". Other films that make it into the torture porn category are Wolf Creek, Turistas and The Devil's Rejects, with each new film promising higher levels of violence - guaranteeing not just a considerable body count, but long, lingering scenes of terror, torture and pain. In most of these films, both men and women end up being sliced, gored, dismembered, decapitated. In that sense they offer audiences equal-opportunity gore. But it's the violence against women that's most troubling, because it is here that sex and extreme violence collide." (Kira Cochrane, The Guardian)

Cochrane's reading of Hostel and Death Proof is extremely superficial. In Eli Roth's movie, women are just as evil and cruel as the men - they have the last word - literally. The same applies to Tarantino's Death Proof. The issue is very complex and needs to be investigated with some balance. Anyway, "gorno"?

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Comments

[Matthew Williamson]

Wow, just... wow. Superficial as hell, and missing the point.