Torture Porn: Popular Horror After Saw

Lambasted by critics as a sign of censorial failure and even social decline, the horror subgenre known as 'torture porn' has generated a great deal of controversy during the last decade.

Although torture porn films such as Saw, Hostel, and The Human Centipede were highly successful and have become cultural touchstones, the term 'torture porn' remains synonymous with misogyny, obscenity and moral depravity.

Arguing primarily in defense of these popular torture-themed horror films, this is the first book to offer a detailed critical examination of the 'torture porn' phenomenon, outlining the subgenre's lineage, scrutinizing responses to the sub-genre, and offering narrative analyses of the sub-genre's central box-office hits as well as the multitude of independent direct-to-DVD films that have followed in their footsteps. In doing so, this book seeks to unpick the relationships between 'porn', 'horror', 'immorality', and 'extremity'.

Author: Steve Jones
Publisher: Palgrave MacMillan
Published: 07/09/2013
Pages: 232
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 0.90lbs
Size: 8.50h x 5.60w x 0.70d
ISBN: 9780230319417

About the Author
Steve Jones is a Lecturer in Media at Northumbria University, UK. His research focuses primarily on the horror genre and topics of representation and gender, particularly on representations of sex and violence. He has published widely in international journals such as the Journal of Japanese and Korean Cinema, Scope, Horror Studies, Animation and Sexualities. This is his first book.