Cliff:

Answering this question is not as easy as it might seem. For starters, I would like to make clear that I am a supporter of torture films (or what many people incorrectly call “torture porn”) as a subgenre of horror cinema, for reasons that can be best understood by reading my essay on the topic. In short, however, I would claim that torture films can be considered artistic, and thus if a torture film’s artistic merit can be defended then it is justifiable insofar that it is a valid cultural artifact. Not all torture films can be sufficiently defended, but the possibility is there nonetheless.

The biggest issue that many people have who are against the subgenre is its vivid depictions of gore (not to be confused with violence). Gore, visually speaking, is the depiction of bodily harm on a person or creature-explicitly showing the process or action by which blood, guts, etc. are extracted or maimed. It can be said that these types of visuals are what the Saw franchise is best known for.

Why is it that people would want to see such gruesome sights? Well, one might as well also wonder why it is that certain people want to be horrified at the movies in the first place. However the question of why an audience member would want to see such visuals does not really apply to this issue. Rather, the question that should be asked is what reasons are behind putting such visuals into these films. In other words, the goal should be to find out the purpose(s) behind the gore. The answer to this question will determine if the gore is justifiable.

The vast majority of the gore found in the first Saw film can be viably connected to the film’s narrative structure. Thus its presence in the film is warranted, and so the visual depictions of it can be defended (even before aesthetic stylings are brought into the equation). This argument can also be made for each of the following Saw sequels, though because each of these films’ narrative structures and visual stylings differ slightly from one to another the strength of the argument admittedly fluctuates accordingly.

Some will argue that because the franchise is now on its sixth installment that all the films are selling is the gore attached to them and not their stories, which should ideologically speaking be considered the meat of the (for lack of a better word?) product. These people would also argue then that the gore has been commodified  stripped of the horror audience’s/counterculture’s dangerous ideological values and meanings so that it can be turned into a mainstream manufactured good. These are notable arguments indeed, but they are not sufficient. Studio executives, while key in the filmmaking processes of Hollywood, are not artists. The director’s guidance and the narrative’s structure determine the tangible motivations behind a film’s incorporation of gore, and so as long as the Saw films continue to provide defensible artistic reasoning their inclusion of gore should be considered justifiable.

Marisa –

So let me start by laying everything out on the table: I’ve never seen a Saw film.  It’s not that I lack interest, I just never got around to watching them.  I have, however, seen my share of horror films and a few films commonly and, as Cliff said, incorrectly classified as “Torture Porn.”  From my somewhat limited experience with the torture subgenre, I must say I fully agree with Cliff’s proposition that in order to legitimize the subgenre as art, we must subject each film to an examination of the causal relationship between the narrative and the displays of gore.

That being said, I wish to issue a single caveat in my agreement regarding the question of popular reception.  While discussing why audiences want to see gore is probably a subject best left to psychologists rather than film critics, to deny that the Saw films’ popularity suggests audiences take a certain pleasure in the depiction of gore would be a mistake.  Potentially pleasurable depictions of gore are certainly not the films’ only appeal, but it is a large part of what draws audiences to the theater.  This pleasure is likely not founded in some national obsession with sadistic torture, but rather a different version of elements that have always drawn people to horror films.

I would argue that horror films offer two main attractions.  First is the natural rush of adrenaline and fear many people feel while watching them.  To steal a quote from Cliff’s piece on “Torture Porn” by Wes Craven, “Horror is about the vulnerability of the body.”  Torture films offer the same adrenaline rush and sense of fear found in the average horror film by expressing the body’s vulnerability in a more extreme form.  The fear felt in a torture film is simply a more primal and heightened version.  Torture films force audience members to imagine themselves in the situations depicted onscreen in a more horrifying and violent manner than other horror films, hence making the thrill that much more potent.  So by showing increasingly gory scenes, the fear and adrenaline are amplified.  This push to make more and more outrageous forms of torture leads to the second attraction of horror films.

This second attraction can basically be characterized as taking pleasure in the imagination and sometimes the sheer absurdity of the torture filmmakers devise.  In his piece on “Torture Porn,” Cliff mentions a scene in Hostel: Part II that is for me, one of the most memorable and enjoyable scenes.  In the scene, a woman literally bathes in a female victim’s blood.  The sheer outrageousness of the scene renders it almost funny.  The process by which this scene becomes entertaining is explained by Cliff as a fetishization of the violence that detaches viewers from the emotional horror on the screen and renders it entertaining.  So the appeal for many viewers of torture films is not watching someone die a horrible death, but the inventiveness of the filmmakers in showing that death.

In essence, it is not the torture for torture’s sake that is being sold, but how creative the depictions of torture, and therefore the filmmakers, are.