It seems the torture porn genre is alive, well and trucks on at full force. This genre was a curious footnote in horror movie history in the late 70s/early 80s and burned itself out and evolved in to something better. Now, however, we seem to be devolving in to who can come up with the most morally vacuous excuse to butcher people on screen. Saw I can handle. Hostel I can handle. Both provide the horror genre with something different. But all these ten-a-penny cash-ins are just leaving a bad taste in the mouth.
I'm the biggest self-confessed horror fan out there, but it just seems to me like the studios and writers themselves are now involved in a tasteless game of oneupmanship to see who can shock the most. Congratulations to the makers of Captivity, who have probably won hands down without even releasing their movie yet. However, the makers of Saw, Twisted Pictures, haven't gotten enough with just the biggest franchise in the market, they want more sick twisted filth and boy are they going all out with their next one.
Variety report that Rob Lieberman (D3: The Mighty Ducks) will direct the subtley titled Tortured for Twisted Pictures this June just after Saw IV wraps. Most of the crew of Saw IV will work on this movie. It's being touted as a psychological revenge thriller, but when your team work on Saw and not much else, it's no great leap to figure out this isn't going to be Silence of the Lambs. Especially after you read the synopsis:
An upper-middle-class (why they can't be one or the other who knows) couple find their life in tatters after a pedophile kidnaps and kills their only child. Obsessed with revenge, the couple jump at an opportunity to kidnap the killer.
I bet it's not to offer him rehabilitation. So, it's safe to say we're faced with another totally morally bankrupt excuse to chop people up slowly and pour vinegar in their wounds in graphic detail. Dealing with an issue like child killers is something that needs sensitivity, it's not something that should be shoe-horned in as an excuse for upping the torture porn ante on how low you're willing to go.
