I have never seen them and do not want to. I remember the former BBC radio 5 live film critic Dave Aldridge described it as 'torture porn.'
I think that Saw was just casually lumped in with some of those other 'torture porn' films and because of that is unfairly maligned, even today. Especially when there were many films that tried to emulate the more gratuitous elements of Saw but didn't offer much more in the way of story. The thing is that it probably did inspire lots of the later torture porn films.
I think Saw is a very good horror film, and in time hindsight will recognize it on its own merits in a more favourable light. I think it's already being seen by some as a classic, which is more than can be said from the other films who enthusiastically jumped onto the torture porn bandwagon.
As I understand it Saw came before all these torture porn films, as we understand them to be labelled as now, and I don't think the term even existed when Saw was made. I think that Leigh Whannell and James Wan just wanted to try and make a good horror film.
I'd give it a whirl, you may be pleasantly surprised. You might like Saw 2 as well, which I think was heavily influenced by the 1997 sci-fi horror film Cube.
I remember seeing the poster for the first one and thinking that's a great title
and then when I watched the film I took it to mean not only the saw that he uses to cut off his foot but saw as in the hospital porter watching them
and I think that's a theme going through the whole series as every one has a camera in it with someone watching on the other end
I have never seen them and do not want to. I remember the former BBC radio 5 live film critic Dave Aldridge described it as 'torture porn.'
People who use that phrase usually miss that the audience is empathising with the victim rather than the torturer. To be gender stereotypical for a moment, they are the male equivalent of female "weepies" - films about unhappy love affairs. With Saw in particular, it's not about someone cutting someone else's foot off with a hacksaw. It's about why someone would cut off their own foot with a hacksaw. Despite all the gore, it is psychological.
The term 'torture porn' is used by the moral guardians in the media who don't understand horror films. Without use of a better phrase, I would consider the term 'torture porn' for the Hostel franchise, The Human Centipede 2 Full Sequence (not the first film), The Last House On The Left, I Spit On Your Grave and the Hellraiser series. The reason why I cite these is because they portray sadistic/sexualised manner in which the villain achieves sexual pleasure from torturing their victims. I do not think that Saw would qualify because the violence isn't sexual but revenge. In the Hellraiser films there is a lot of reference to pleasure and the villains are dressed in bondage gear.
Note that the word "porn" in "torture porn" does not refer to sex. It refers to how the films linger on the torture, and how the plot seems like a pretext to show torture. People sometimes talk of "space porn", meaning photos of galaxies from the Hubble Telescope, or "skyscraper porn", meaning the shots of the London skyline in The Apprentice. So sex isn't needed to qualify as "torture porn".
With that understood, I would say Saw was torture porn. However, I don't think that invalidates it. It can still involve interesting characters and situations.
Comments
I think that Saw was just casually lumped in with some of those other 'torture porn' films and because of that is unfairly maligned, even today. Especially when there were many films that tried to emulate the more gratuitous elements of Saw but didn't offer much more in the way of story. The thing is that it probably did inspire lots of the later torture porn films.
I think Saw is a very good horror film, and in time hindsight will recognize it on its own merits in a more favourable light. I think it's already being seen by some as a classic, which is more than can be said from the other films who enthusiastically jumped onto the torture porn bandwagon.
As I understand it Saw came before all these torture porn films, as we understand them to be labelled as now, and I don't think the term even existed when Saw was made. I think that Leigh Whannell and James Wan just wanted to try and make a good horror film.
I'd give it a whirl, you may be pleasantly surprised. You might like Saw 2 as well, which I think was heavily influenced by the 1997 sci-fi horror film Cube.
and then when I watched the film I took it to mean not only the saw that he uses to cut off his foot but saw as in the hospital porter watching them
and I think that's a theme going through the whole series as every one has a camera in it with someone watching on the other end
Note that the word "porn" in "torture porn" does not refer to sex. It refers to how the films linger on the torture, and how the plot seems like a pretext to show torture. People sometimes talk of "space porn", meaning photos of galaxies from the Hubble Telescope, or "skyscraper porn", meaning the shots of the London skyline in The Apprentice. So sex isn't needed to qualify as "torture porn".
With that understood, I would say Saw was torture porn. However, I don't think that invalidates it. It can still involve interesting characters and situations.