Is The Torture Porn Horror Trend Dead?
Looks like America has had enough of the blood and guts for the time being. This weekend, the Lionsgate film Captivity starring Elisha Cuthbert failed to make a dent at the box office, just barely scraping together a $1.5 million opening. This, combined with the poor showing of Eli Roth’s Hostel: Part II, has a lot of people calling the whole “torture porn” trend dead on arrival. Even 28 Weeks Later underperformed earlier this summer, which is a shame because that film was quite well done and at least worthy of some attention. Will this mean the end of R-rated horror, as Eli Roth has been predicting? Unfortunately, all signs point to “yes”.
Lionsgate have announced that they are delaying the film All The Boys Love Mandy Lane, another upcoming slasher flick that has received positive reviews so far. It is unclear what will happen to Rob Zombie’s Halloween or Saw IV, but both would seem to be treading on thin ice at the moment. Still, here’s my question: are studios jumping to conclusions here? Are people really sick of R-rated horror films? Personally I don’t think the failure of Hostel Part II and Captivity are all that surprising. They were released in the summer amidst a crowd of massive blockbusters, and Captivity in particular received terrible reviews. It also doesn’t help that people started using this “torture porn” label to describe all R-rated horror films, which is both condescending and unappealing. I think that the public will still go see R-rated movies, as long as the timing is right… and as long as they’re good. Let’s not write off an entire genre just because of a few misfires.
Comments (4)
I don’t think people are sick of R-rated horror films, I think people are just sick of crap movies. I don’t think a movie that is rated “R” can rely on drawing a crowd BECAUSE it is rated “R” anymore. This once coveted “R” rating was taken for granted and seemed to be an excuse to make boring films that relied more on gore than on creeps. People will go see “R” rated films if they are good films (ok maybe not always) but if something is termed “torture-porn”, I have a feeling a lot of people will just immediately tune out because they equate it with a crap movie. This is unfortunate because in an instance like “28 Weeks Later” this movie was almost as exciting as the original, but hardly anyone will know.
Posted by Bishop on July 16th, 2007You know what, the problem with Eli Roth’s outing and Captivity is that its torture for the sake of torture.
At least in the Saw series, the torture has a purpose and really ties into the story.
Posted by Grim Santo on July 16th, 2007I think Captivity did poorly in theaters because it looked fucking bad.
I also think that Hostel II didn’t do all that well because everyone either 1.) didn’t want to see the first one, so also wouldn’t want to see the second, 2.) saw the first, didn’t like it, and didn’t want to see the second, or 3.) saw the first one, liked it, and wanted to see the second. Any way you cut it, it seems to me that the second film in that particular series had to do worse than the original because only a portion of those interested in the first were interested in a second as well. The simple fact is that Hostel isn’t for everyone and while people would see the first to find out what it’s like, the only people who saw the sequel were those who liked the original and came back for more. For example, I thought the first one looked cool, I saw it, realized that it was not very good, and opted out of sitting through the second. Hostel isn’t about the story or the characters. It’s about the shock. The first one was shocking because nobody knew what to expect. We all knew what to expect from the sequel and many of us just weren’t interested.
While I don’t believe that R-rated horror will ever go out of style, torture films are all just about being tortured. If you’ve seen one you’ve seen them all. R-rated horror can be many things aside from just torture films.
Posted by Rian on July 16th, 2007Leave a Reply