Do I Hear The Death Knoll For Torture Porn?

Despite a super-controversial ad campaign and the fact that it stars Elisha Cuthbert, the young woman who played Jack Bauer’s hottie daughter in Fox TV’s 24, the torture/horror flick Captivity bombed at the U.S. box office on it’s opening weekend.

It earned less than $1.6 million in the U.S.

One thing I found very interesting was the fact that it brought in 2 1/2 times more money overseas (almost $3.9 million) than it did stateside. I guess since other countries are supposed to be more “enlightened” than we six-pack guzzling denizens of the U S of A, that must mean that enjoying torture on the big screen makes you a better person?

Oh, take it easy, I’m kidding.

Eli Roth was incensed over how poorly his recent contribution to the genre Hostel Part 2 did, blaming it on movie pirating. At the time I thought that was a poor scapegoat for how few people showed up to see his sequel, and apparently I was right.

Like anything new, folks showed up in droves for the first couple of Saw movies, and Roth’s first Hostel. But the first Saw film came out in October 2004 - two and a half years ago and since then we’ve had two sequels to that (I stopped after number two), the first Hostel, The Hills Have Eyes, and I’m sure another one or two that escapes my memory at the moment.

Overall, each of these subsequent movies has made less over the course of it’s release per theater during it’s run than the previous film in the genre. Once the curiosity factor blows over and with break room conversation shifting from “Man, did you SEE that movie? It was WILD!” to “What? ANOTHER one?” the decline of this sort of film, which targets a narrow audience to begin with (horror fans), was inevitable.

I’ve been a horror film fan for a long time (although probably more so in the past than I am today), so don’t go throwing stones my way. However once I got past my early 20’s, I craved a little something more than gratuitous gore just for it’s own sake. Now I enjoy films that can give me such a sense of dread and terror that I want to leave my skin than I do just watching the equivalent of open heart surgery on a live victim.

It seems I’m not alone.

Source: Box Office Mojo

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