99 Buckets of Gore on the Floor, 99...

It's sad that horror films are more like torture porn these days. I haven't seen the first HOSTEL movie, but I think they need to stop.

Well, there was one highlight: The Descent seems like the only normal horror film of late.

I have a long-held theory about the dumbing down of modern horror movies, which traces their long-lasting fall to the original JAWS. While JAWS was a brilliantly conceived and executed horror film, it was also one of the first to operate largely on a visceral level -- Terrifying audiences at a gut level with almost no intellectual quotient. My theory centers on the desensitization (is that a word?) of the movie-going public that has been on-going in the three decades since JAWS was originally released: Younger audiences, through years of exposure to violence on TV, in the movies (and especially in graphic video games) have gotten to the point where one of the few things they react to is gore. And to get a reaction from them at all, the graphic gore quotient has to be upped, like a poker ante, with every new film. Thus we now have "entertainment" like the HOSTEL, SAW and recent TEXAS CHAINSAW remakes/rip-offs. Their supposed "attraction" is seeing how much more realistic (and, to many of us not "into" this kind of "entertainment," disgustingly graphic) each film can be than the one before it. At this rate, actual snuff films should come back into vogue some time in the next 2-3 years... 

Regardless, they finally seem to be realizing they JUST MIGHT be oversaturating the market with horror films.  At least Bob Weinstein might have, as he quoted as much in today's Sunday paper in regards to the avalanche viewers are getting lately, and that the genre will probably need new boundaries to find soon. 

There's a reason I didn't see the first one.

I think I found something interesting that can put another twist for worst remake or sequel...

Originally posted by Razzilla Just found out the episode... Lights Out 5-11-1938 titled "It Happened"...

I feel Jason Boggs is grossly mischaracterizing the attack at Pearl Harbor by calling it a terrorist attack.  It was a declaration of war by not just one country, but three, already at war with the rest of the world.  This declaration just happened to be delivered by a sucker punch, in the form of torpedo bombers, bombers and fighters.

That said, after reading the rest of his article, I agree that Arch Oboler is radio's equivalent to torture porn.  It would be interesting if it turned out Eli Roth was familiar with Oboler's broadcast.  I wouldn't be surprised if there were books going way back that tell similar stories.

I don't feel any of this justifies a museum exhibit that characterizes torture porn movies as "a resurgence in production, popularity, and inventiveness unparalleled since the rise of the indie horror movement in the 1970s."  It's like using cussing, grossness, or sex to cover up what isn't there.  It's just graphic violence taken to a new level.

I found the first Saw and Hostel movies to be decently entertaining. For Hostel in particular, the violence was sometimes over the top, but overall they were unique in their own way. For the violence, I refuse to watch any of the sequels...