Watch Me Bleed: Torture Porn Cinema:

“There is a place where all your darkest, sickest, fantasies are possible/where you can experience anything you desire/where you can torture, punish, or kill…for a price.” These words grazed movie theater screens everywhere when they appeared on the theatrical trailer for Eli Roth’s Hostel (2005). Mingled with various images of frightened faces, instruments of torture, and an eerie music track, these words formed a successful marketing campaign for the upcoming film. Merely the suggestion of acts of torture and brutality captivated horror fans and curious spectators alike. In its opening weekend in January 2006, the film grossed over $19.5 million, making it the highest grossing film that weekend. Overall, Hostel grossed over $80.5 million (boxofficemojo.com) worldwide, not bad when you take into account the meager $4.5 million budget on which the film was made. With one hour and thirty-five minutes of blood spewing and literally eye-popping gore, Hostel tested the constitutions of avid horror fans as well as the squeamish. Perhaps more jarring then the actual torture scenes however, are the many sadistic characters that perpetrate the acts. The idea of wealthy, successful business people, the likes of which we probably brush shoulders with on a daily basis, committing such horrid atrocities, makes the film all the more disturbing. When Roth first wrote Hostel, he expected to shock and revolt movie audiences, but he didn’t expect to define an entirely new sub-genre of horror.

The term “torture porn” was first coined in a New York Magazine article by film critic David Edelstein, titled “Now Playing at your Local Multiplex: Torture Porn,” to describe Roth’s film. Torture porn has since been referred to as “splatter porn,” “horror porn,” and “gorno.” In addition, many films released prior to Hostel have since been classified as torture porn including, Saw (2004), Wolf Creek (2005), and The Devil’s Rejects (2005). However, as Hostel is the most extreme and blatant display of torture and exploitation, it is the most definitive film of the sub-genre. Even so, the Saw series has continued to maintain the popularity of torture porn. The series skyrocketed in box office ratings from the first to second films. While the first Saw movie grossed a little over $55 million domestically, the sequel grossed some $87 million. As this umbrella term for this horror sub-genre is relatively new, it is difficult to pinpoint a single concrete definition of it. Nonetheless, it is possible to put the pieces of the puzzle together to create a comprehensive description of the genre’s implications. For one, unlike preceding horror sub-genres, torture porn films are much less concerned with inspiring fear based on current social concerns than they are with merely exploiting the masochistic human thirst for terror. Ironically, the unprovoked violence and desire to inflict suffering expressed in these movies mirrors the audience’s internal desire to witness agonizing images of torture and torment.

While shock rock is by no means a new sub-genre of music, the magnitude of its popularity continues to increase. While many shock rock bands and artists ride on the image of non-conformists with a message to society, their primary appeal revolves around the way in which they stage displays that evoke the element of shock from their audiences. Take Slipknot, a nine-member band originating in Des Moines, Iowa. Like GWAR, all of the band members in Slipknot have adopted theatrical personas, using freakish costumes and custom masks to define themselves as unique characters. Among some of the more prominent of these masks are an eerie clown face, eye-catching pinhead, and a twisted Pinocchio-inspired character. Every one of the masks has a dark, nefarious air about it, resembling those one would expect to see in a slasher flick. Once more, all of the masks can now be found for sale around the Internet, including in the band’s official online store. In addition to their respective characters, the band members are also known by their self-assigned numerical stage aliases ranging from zero to eight. Similar to the way in which GWAR fans refer to themselves as “scumdogs,” the members of Slipknot refer to their fans as “maggots,” a rather insulting and debasing term. In fact, everything about their act seems to suggest a desire to jolt audiences with their freakish image. However, the members of Slipknot insist that their success derives more from their music than the band’s shocking image. In fact, band member Shawn Crahan, also known as “clown,” claims that it was never the band’s intention to create an image based on shock value to attract fans: “If anything, it was a totally anti-image thing, no cool hairstyles, no cool clothes, no rock star bullshit. If our anti-image has turned into an image, then cool. After five minutes of seeing the band, I don’t think anyone pays attention to it. They pay attention to the music” (Slipknot-metal). However, are Slipknot’s fans truly attracted to the band’s music? While the music might give longevity to their fan base, is it really at the basis of their initial appeal to fans? After all, they are certainly not the only shock rock band out there, and their lyrics, while controversial, are certainly not revolutionary. For instance, in the band’s official biography on AOL Music, their music style is described as a “mix of grinding, post-Korn alternative metal, Marilyn Manson-esque neo-shock rock, and rap-metal” (Huey). As such, one can infer that Slipknot’s music is not innovative, but rather a product of influence.

Upon listening to their music, one is immediately struck by the dark satanic quality of the lead singer’s voice. Many of their songs have a frantic quality about it, from the fast-paced rhythms and rap-like recitation of the almost completely incomprehensible lyrics. While some of the choruses actually contain a harmonic quality about them, the majority of the songs are overwhelmed by unmelodic bass and guitar rifts and deal with subjects of depression, hopelessness, and self-hatred. Nevertheless, Slipknot’s success has only increased with every album, gradually raising them from the underground world to a mainstream sensation. In 2008, All Hope is Gone debuted as the band’s first number one hit on six different charts, most importantly the Billboard 200 on which the album remained for fifty-three weeks. With ratings like these, it is safe to say that Slipknot has succeeded in bringing shock rock to the mainstream music world and redefining peoples’ perceptions of fear. While their music is thematically similar to that of many other metal and shock rock artists, their eerie personas are unique tothem. Thus, their success is primarily a result of the extremely controversial nature of their act. While shock rock artists such as Slipknot have taken the music industry by storm, over the past few years, a new horror sub-genre has similarly emerged to exploit the human attraction to pain and terror like none before it.

Shock, Rock, & Roll

Shock, Rock, & Roll:

On a summer weeknight, hundreds of sweaty concertgoers are packed into an overcrowded venue like sardines. All the lights are down, as the crowd stands eagerly with their eyes locked firmly on the stage before them. The crowd is mostly male, with the exception of a few reluctant girls who were dragged to the show by their boyfriends. Suddenly, the image of a timer pops up on a projector screen, sporting the words “time until death,” written in eerie red letters. The audience feverishly begins to count down from sixty seconds, following the lead of the death timer. When they reach zero, the digital timer explodes on the screen, and five monstrous looking characters emerge on the stage, clad in the most outlandish masks and costumes one could ever dream of seeing. They proceed to address the audience in absurd voices that suggest failed attempts to convey a robust monster-like tone. The first cacophonous chords of one of their songs echo off the walls. None of the songs have any audible melody or comprehensible lyrics to accompany them, and yet, the crowd continues to go wild. Interestingly, only about fifty percent, at the most, of the concert consists of playing music, and the rest of the time is devoted to atrocious on-stage demonstrations and faux bodily fluids, which are splattered on the audience. All throughout the show, the audience continues to chant the name of this spectacle: “GWAR.”

Unless you are an avid heavy metal follower, then chances are, you probably have not heard of bands such as GWAR, Cradle of Filth, and Slipknot. On the other hand, you probably have heard of controversial bands and figures such as Marilyn Manson, Alice Cooper, Nine Inch Nails, and Rob Zombie, merely through mass media exposure. Why though, you may ask, are these associations significant and how do they relate to one another? Well, all of these

respective acts are part of a collective sub-genre called “shock rock” that has increasingly garnered popularity since its emergence in the late 1970s. While no “official” definition for shock rock exists, Wiktionary provides perhaps the most comprehensive description: “a genre of rock music typified by elements of theatrical shock value in live performances.” The band GWAR is perhaps one of the most extreme examples of this sub-genre. When it comes to evoking shock and repulsion from audiences, the band members of GWAR are the masters. From their frequent “lampooning” of current celebrities and political figures, which can be viewed in various web media, to their sexually charged demonstrations, GWAR attempts to combine shocking theatrics with rock music.

Since the band’s peak in the early 1990s, GWAR has received two Grammy nominations and has continued to maintain a cult-like contingency of fans that refer to themselves as the less than endearing terms of “Bohabs” and “Scumdogs.” After more than a decade long slump period, this past September, GWAR made its way back into the mainstream music world through the newly released Lust in Space. The album came in at number ninety-six on the Billboard 200, marking the band’s first mainstream chart album since 1992. Even though Lust in Space only remained on the Billboard 200 for one week, the mainstream chart recognition itself is very impressive for a band that has largely remained in the underground music scene for the past seventeen years or so. Of the band’s recent success, Greg Prato of the Allmusic database said, “When over-the-top theatrical metallists GWAR first appeared on the scene back in the late ‘80s, surely, many critics and detractors figured that the group would be a fast-fading fad. But as the years have accumulated, the group's massive cult following has only grown larger, with each successive new album and gore-tour” (Prato). Then the question arises as to how such a bizarre

and nonsensical (not to mention vulgar) act could succeed in today’s cutthroat music industry. The answer is simple: people are attracted to the strange and unnatural. Just like the revolting acts demonstrated in many of today’s most gruesome horror movies, shock rock artists like GWAR thrive on the human desire to be shocked and outraged.

A New Era of Terror: The Extremities of the Fright Industry

The following blog post is an adapted version of an original academic piece that I wrote for my freshman College Writing class in the fall of 2009. It explores the evolution of the horror industry, focusing specifically on the development of extremities in horror cinema and rock music. For aesthetic purposes, I have broken the original piece into several sub-sections ranging from shock rock music to amusement park thrill rides. Although I claim all rights to the writing, I will make references to any works cited and I do not claim ownership rights to any visual or sound media, which I have included to enhance the reader's experience. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. Thank you!

An Introduction to Horror:

Have you ever watched a movie before that was so grotesque and horrifying that you tried to look away but couldn’t take your eyes off the screen? Maybe you’ve gotten on a rollercoaster that made your knees wobble and your stomach tingle, or maybe you’ve even heard a song that both shocked and enthralled you with its dark lyrics and screeching instrumentals. While these three instances may appear to have no connection to one another, they are in fact connected in that they are the collective products of the American horror industry. While the horror industry has deep, far-reaching roots in American culture, only in the past few years has a far more extreme side of terror begun to emerge and garner popularity. This “extreme” side of the horror industry can best be viewed as a collective sub-genre of the larger horror industry, comprised of three seemingly separate industries: music, movies, and thrill rides. These new offshoots of the horror industry contain elements more shocking, outrageous, brutal, and horrifying than any before them; it is thus curious how such over-the-top films, music, and rides could garner such immense popularity in only a few years. The answer is simple: people like to be scared and they enjoy the intense sensation of fear. These extremities are merely the result of the horror industry’s evolution. Film producers, musicians, and ride engineers are merely responding to and exploiting the human thirst for terror and thrills. With the capabilities of new technology and mass media, these people have been able to exploit the appeal of fear and horror like never before.