First time that I've heard the term "torture-porn"

Now, it could be that I've been living in a hole for the past several months, but I'd never heard the term "torture-porn" before today. Torture-porn, for those who are wondering, is basically a splatter film or a film that repeatedly and graphically portrays violence and gore. Some examples are Hostel, the Saw films, and The Hills Have Eyes, to name a few.

I'm not the most eloquent person in the world, and there are much better writers out there than I, so I'm going to point you to them to express the aversion (that's putting it mildly) that I have to this genre of film. I pretty much agree 100% with this article over at CHUD, so go there first. It's a good read, but be prepared... the page has the latest poster for Hostel II on it as an example, and it's fairly off-putting.

Here's another article (also linked within the CHUD article) that reports, among other things, on Joss Whedon's opinion on the matter. The rest of the article is a little preachy and overly socio-analytical in my opinion, but it's a decent read.