Torture porn

Of the fictional variety (via Raw Story). Another notch in the history of the Downfall of American Civilization? Remember, the Romans had the vomitorium.

Every decade or so, horror gets hot in Hollywood. This latest shockwave, though, is larger—and much more grotesque. You could sew together a whole new person from all the severed body parts in the "Saw" movies, "Hostel" and Fox Searchlight's remake of Wes Craven's "The Hills Have Eyes." It's not jokey violence, either. "Filmmakers now have the ability to put viewers directly into the shoes of the victims going through these horrible things, in an almost documentary way," says Bob Weinstein, whose "Scream" franchise for Dimension Films launched the last horror fad in 1996. Some critics—smart ones like New York Magazine's David Edelstein, not just nervous Nellies—argue that the trend verges on "torture porn." Even people within the industry are torn. "It's not the violence that bothers me so much as the tone. A George Romero movie was so political and funny and subversive," says Picturehouse Films president Bob Berney, who marketed "The Passion of the Christ." "To me, these newer movies are purely sadistic." Then again, he adds, "I remember my parents saying stuff like this, and I ignored it. They wouldn't let me see 'A Clockwork Orange,' and I went 25 times."