Torture/Gore movies - why would you ENJOY them?

[SickandBloated]

So I've been seeing someone for a few weeks now and it's become apparant that he likes torture movies such as SAW, Hostel etc

We're supposed to be going to the cinema at some point and he wants to go and see Final Destination. I don't. I don't see anything entertaining about watching people die sick and gruesome deaths. In the clip I've seen, someone gets covered in burning hot tar and someone else gets killed during lazer eye surgery. Gross.

His other suggestion was that we watch some SAW DVDs at his house. Again, no thanks.

He thinks I'm unusual but why the hell would you actually WANT to watch stuff like this??

Hate em, I cant understand why people get a kick out of the idea of pain and suffering.

I really enjoy horror films like Scream, I Know What You Did Last Summer, Final Destination etc but I can't watch things that could happen in your own home, IYSWIM? Like The Strangers (although I did watch that one actually, but at the same time as watching Eastenders on my Iphone so I wasn't really watching it...) and ones where the horror/violence is for no reason and senseless.

I watched Eden Lake the other day and it literally made me feel sick. The same with 'I Spit On Your Grave.' Horrendous films.

I adore zombie films too, the racing heart and the suspense etc. I do agree with other posters, though, that a storyline makes or breaks a film, and the characters.

Slightobsession, I like the teen slasher ones too.

Wasn't I Spit on Your Grave based on a true story?

Eden Lake was scarey for me because it wasn't some unknown/unrealistic psycho/monster.

"Hate em, I cant understand why people get a kick out of the idea of pain and suffering"

And yet Eastenders does quite well out of it..

Psst its not real. I'm married to the kindest most well balanced man I ever met, he's passionate about gore films (mostly old school pre-cert well directed films, but a bit of slash and gore too). Does he get a kick out of it? Yup, so do I, done well. Would we get the same kick if it were real? Duh, of course not.

I hate rom coms, they're more dangerous in my very humble opinion....

I quite liked the first 2 final destination, especially 2, where the characters who died were only alive because of things that had happened to the characters who died in FD1. For example one girl was booked on a holiday, the holiday place had some disaster and nobody survived, but she did, because she never actually got to the holiday - the bus she was on was delayed, because it ran over another girl (one of the characters from the first film).

After that it just got silly though, and ceased to be interesting, more an excuse to film every gory death possible. And I started to get unnecessarily worried about freak accidents as well, so I decided not to watch any more.

Actually some of the things in Torchwood are upsetting me this season No, I don't think I could go out with someone who really enjoyed films like Saw etc.

But there are sharks in UK waters. Whether there are 'killer' sharks is a different matter,but we certainly have species of shark residing here,and some which are seasonal visitors.

A basking shark based horror film would be pointless wouldn't it? Unless you happen to be a piece of seaweed, or a krill.

I loathe Final Destination though.... but that's taste, I don't think the people who like it are in some way sick.

I would like to say to the OP that your guy's taste isn't questionable, rather his continued suggestions to watch them together AFTER you've said you hate them is slightly annoying!

I realise that that probably won't help your phobia.

Well there are other species,besides the basking shark,but the sharks are in more danger of becoming someone's dinner than we are of becoming theirs.

DH and I enjoy quite different films occasionally - we watch things together, thrillers, comedies, even horror/thriller types like Se7en. But he likes gladiatorial historical type slash-fests (300, Beowulf, etc) which I don't. I would be really dischuffed if he insisted I watch them, or watched nothing else. That's just selfish and slightly obsessed.

I "enjoyed" SAW, I thought the first one was quite clever. But then they just got stupid. I won't watch Hostel as DH said it was gross and I wouldn't like it. I quite like daft horror films such as Scream and Nightmare on Elm Street and find many psychological horrors such as Paranormal Activity boring beyond belief.

I am terrified of gore in films. I have to cover my eyes and ears during slightly gory scenes in non-horror films. DH has learnt to warn me in advance so I can stick my fingers in my ears and shut me eyes. He gives me a nudge when the gore has finished.

When I was 7 I went on my first sleepover, the mum sat me and the other kids down in front of Nightmare on Elm Street! I didn't sleep for weeks after (my poor mum!) and was afraid of knives for a long time. I think my fear of horror films stems from that....

Horror films are one thing, torture porn is another.

For example, the first FD film, the first Saw film. They were interesting and had real plots driving the horror. The sequels? Not so much. When the first film sets the bar so high, the rest inevitably fail to live up to it and just try to out-shock and out-gore the prequel. Thats when I would question the point to watching those films, unless of course you are 15 and want to prove to your peers how clever you are for having seen something rated above your age and so horrible (yes, I have been there!)

Personally I find true fear lies in the more subtle films. Someone mentioned El Orfanato...beautiful film that terrified the shite out of me for the sequence where she's knocking for the children and the camera keeps panning round in one long shot...

I agree that horror films [zombie/vampire/ghosts] are one thing and that torture films are something else entirely.

I can quite happily [behind my fingers] watch horror films but cannot abide watching scenarios where actors are portraying human suffering and pain at the hands of another's depravity. I certainly cannot understand how someone can be excited by or enjoy this genre.

All I keep thinking is that in RL people are being and have been tortured in horrific ways and to make films where people pay money to be entertained by this seems quite nasty and sick imo.

A caveat to this is documentary style film where torture and abuse is portrayed as it was a true life event. For example I am trying to get enough courage to actually watch "The stoning of Soraya M" as I feel this is a important story to tell but I know it will be a tough watch

I Spit on your Grave was originally based on a true story - Same as American Psycho, unfortunately mans inhumanity towards man is sicker than anything anyone could make up

Sharks on the other hand - they're just biding their time until they grow legs and get us!

I thought El Orfanato was an excellent film.

I haven't seen American Psycho.

I imagine people who like torture porn feel small and want to feel big, so they get off on seeing the murderer portrayed in ultimate power over their victim.
I guess they are likely to be the sort of creepy people who would've been in the front row to see people guillotined or burnt at the stake. Or to watch gladiators fight to the death and get eaten by animals, poke inmates at Bedlam with a stick, you know - sickos. They'd quite like to murder people themselves for fun but don't dare to. If there was a civil war, these people would be stabbing their next door neighbours and stealing their belongings. The film gives them a thrill, something to imagine the next time they have a wank.

Because this is how I feel, if I dated a man who confessed he loved torture porn. I wouldn't be happy. I would have to end it.

Unless he had a great big cock and a hot air balloon.

I wouldn't continue seeing someone who liked films like Saw etc; it would be a deal breaker. It horrifies me that there is a market for the genre. I think there's something seriously sick/wrong with people who enjoy torture porn: at best, lack of empathy/imagination (supported by the posters upthread who've said things like "I don't know why I like it, I just do"), at worst, they're a psychopath and potential perpetrator of violence. If a new man was pushing me to come and watch Saw films at his house, I'd be wondering if he was planning to end the evening by chopping me up into tiny pieces!

I'm not squeamish - I'm fascinated by all things medical and love watching surgery on TV (extreme makeover etc) - but I could no more watch fictionalised violence and cruelty than I could watch it in real life.

Oh I didn't know that about I spit on your grave :s that's horrific.

I agree with what someone else said further up the thread about people in RL doing things far more disgusting than a film could ever show.

I saw Hostel and Saw as well and likemany others I thought the first one was good but the others bored me. Hostel upset me because... Well, in my head, it could happen, right? There are sick people out there and they often find each other. Zombies, not so much :)

I thought SAW was crap...

I like to be scared. Grossed out, nah.

I regularly use a clip of The Shining when teaching suspense writing - the bit with Danny triking down corridors & then the cut to the twin girls - it always gets a scream from the class - most of whom will have seen SAW & FD.

I can scare myself silly reading something like The Turn of the Screw, or watching the Grudge, whereas the gorefest films I've seen tend to be quite formulaic - you've got that tongue in cheek, intertextual thing going on that's got awfully boring since the first Scream.

Apparently OP a mismatch in terms of liking horror films is a fundamental indicator of incompatibility according to this survey which means that he's not a long-term option....make of that what you will!

Malificence - is The Collector from the book by John Fowles or does it just have the same name? I can't remember a cat or any gore in the book (been far too long since I read it) but it was still a very creepy read.

OP - I like some horror but have lost my taste for mindless gore. Let The Right One In (Subtitled) / Let Me In (English Language Remake) are both very good versions of the vampire book by John Ajvide Lindqvist, bit gory but with a plot that makes it seem realistic and not just done for shock value.

But I can't even look at the poster for films like The Human Centipede without feeling ill.

If you know you won't like it, don't watch, don't be persuaded. Sometimes people are quite insistant that you will love something if you just give it a try, just because they do. They can't believe you won't like it and aren't happy until they've convinced you to try.

Not long back DH was insisting that I would like some horrible theme park ride called The Apocalypse just because he did and I know I would have hated it. And this from the man who still has a scar from my fingernails sticking in his neck on a waterslide in Corfu that he insisted would be fun. A man whose leg I bit on purpose when we were on the big wheel thing in Manchester. A man whose arm I nipped with my fingernails (again) quite violently on a boat ride at sea just this month. He should know me better by now, these things are only fun for other people who don't have stomachs like mine and who aren't easily overcome by the need to share the pain.

In all honesty.....

Gore films make me really horny... (although this doesn't include films like "The Human Centipede" or "Saw", more bloody films)

It's the adrenaline rush I suppose. You could say the same about rollercoasters and ask why anyone would want to frighten themselves going on them, or bungee jumping etc.

It's the fear that something could happen, and horror movies being quite graphic do that very well and if they genuinely scare you will bring on the 'Fight or Flight' response which causes a lovely adrenaline rush.

takethisonehereforastart, The Collector is about someone who breaks into his employer's home to steal, but there's already someone there.....

I've seen Let Me In the remake, do you think it's worth watching the original?