For our Media slideshow about Gorenography

1. Gore returns with a vengeance
“gore-nography” or “torture porn”
in the 2000s.
By Millie and Roisin.

2. • Torture definition:
• Torture is often used to punish, to obtain
information or a confession, to take revenge
on a person or persons or create terror and
fear within a population.
Some of the most common methods of
physical torture include beating, electric
shocks, stretching, submersion, suffocation,
burns, rape and sexual assault.

4. David Edelstein
• Chief film critic for New York David Edelstein is credited
with coining the term “torture porn” as a genre to
describe the movie Hostel (2005). In a review for
Hostel, David Edelstein writes how he cannot
understand the latest crave for horror in America. He
links Hostel to other films such as Saw and Wolf Creek.
His suggestion for why people are interested in
watching these ‘torture movies’ Edelstein says “In the
same way that some women cut themselves (they say)
to feel something, maybe some moviegoers need to
identify with people being cut to feel something, too.
Maybe”.

5. David Edelstein
• David Edelstein’s other suggestion of the term
torture porn, saying in 2006 saying “We
engage in these kinds of movies on a purely
visceral level, all considerations of story and
character aside. Jude like porn except the
focus of the action is torture, rather than sex”.

6. Real life torture case in 2000
From late 2003 to early 2004, during the Iraq War,
Military Police personnel of the United States Army and
the Central Intelligence Agency committed human rights
violations against prisoners held in the Abu Ghraib prison.
They physically and sexually abused tortured, raped and
killed prisoners. Civilians armed with camera phones
were also making headlines as ‘Happy Slapping’ became
the latest adolescent craze. With ‘torture’ crimes all over
the news it was inevitable that the topic would soon fall
into entertainment and could be a reason as to why the
2000’s was a huge hit for gore-nography and torture porn
in the 2000s.

7. • During the 2000’s many films were released
that contain large amounts of torture, porn
and gore elements. Some of these films
include Hostel, the Saw movies and Captivity.
Although torture porn is not a brand new
genre in films (Child’s Play first movie was
released in 1988) the way the acts in the films
are being displayed is more real to the
audience watching them, therefor has a much
stronger effect.