The Last Resort (2009)
Sinister Abandoned Resort
This was made following the success of Hostel, a low-budget film concerning a group of girls abandoned at a deserted Mexican resort town that may be haunted
Sadism and Torture
Sadism and Torture is the infliction of pain, suffering and cruelty on another person and the enjoyment of doing so. The sexual enjoyment of administering and receiving such between consenting parties is discussed under BDSM.
Sadism and Torture is frequently the province of Psychos and Serial Killers. Those held captive in Imprisonment Thrillers are also frequently subject to such. 1970s exploitation films detailing the historic Witch Persecutions and the Women in Prison genre became notorious for depicting catalogues of cruelties inflicted on victims.
The Backwoods Brutality cycle was known for pushing depictions of sadism and torture to extremes, showing backwoods dwellers and hillbillies taking great delight in inflicting a range of savageries upon innocent city dwellers.
One of the greatest extremes in recent years has been the so-called Torture Porn cycle of the 2000s and the French Extremism of the same period, featuring a series of films that pushed on-screen depictions of sadism to heretofore unknown levels.
Leatherface: Texas Chainsaw Massacre III (1990)
Backroads Brutality
The third of the Texas Chainsaw films where the rights have now been inherited by New Line Cinema and the brutality of the original promptly watered down to MPAA standards
The Lesson (2015)
Schoolteacher Tortures Pupils
A milquetoast teacher tires of disrespectful pupils and imprisons two of them with the intention of torturing them into learning. The idea of an intellectual Torture Porn film if such is not an oxymoron.
Live Animals (2008)
Imprisonment and Torture
A film made not long after the advent of the Torture Porn fad in which a group of friends are imprisoned on a farm to be broken and sold into slavery
Macabre (2009)
Gore-Drenched Indonesian Backwoods Brutality
An Indonesian copy of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre that is one of the most enthusiastically gore-drenched bloodbaths in ages. This announced directors Kimo Stamboel and Timo Tjahjanto to the world
Mark of the Devil (1970)
Historical Witch Persecutions and Tortures
Another depiction of the Middle Ages witch persecutions that becomes a catalogue of the cruelties enacted – Torture Porn way back before anybody ever invented the term
Marquis de Sade (1996)
Marquis De Sade Biopic
A biopic of the Marquis de Sade that is not uninteresting but suffers from being produced by Roger Corman on one of his usual B-budgets
Martyrs (2008)
Imprisonment and Torture
Pascal Laugier makes one of the most horrific films to emerge from France in the 00s. Scenes of grim torture sit alongside a plot that messes with almost everything we take for granted
Martyrs (2015)
Imprisonment and Torture
Martyrs was one of the most grimly disturbing films of the 2000s; this English-language remake, which waters everything down and rewrites the ending to have one of the girls bursting in to save the other with a shotgun counts as surely one of the great all-time cinematic bad ideas
The Mask of Fu Manchu (1932)
Super-Villain
Boris Karloff plays the super-villain Fu Manchu, giving a performance of calculating evil in a film of great pulp thrillers
The Masque of the Red Death (1964)
Edgar Allan Poe Adaptation
The seventh of Roger Corman’s Edgar Allan Poe adaptations and usually the best regarded. Vincent Price is at his most cruel and the film looks incredibly sumptuous thanks to a young Nicolas Roeg on camera
Matthew Hopkins – Witchfinder General (1968)
Historical Witch Persecutions
Stark and effective film based on a true-life historical figure, this sets out to depict the barbarism of the 17th century witch hunts. Vincent Price plays seriously and the film is all the more effective as a result
Men Behind the Sun (1988)
Atrocities in a Japanese Concentration Camp
One of a rare handful of films that can be considered the most extreme ever made, this a catalogue of the true-life atrocities and experiments inflicted on prisoners during the Japanese occupation of Manchuria in WWII. An intensely uncomfortable watch not recommended for the faint-hearted
Mother’s Day (2010)
Home Invasion/Torture Porn
This has almost nothing in common with the 1980 film it is supposedly based on. Instead we get a home invasion film where Darren Lynn Bousman of Saw sequel fame shows that constant scenes of brutality and torture are all that he has in his arsenal
Mum & Dad (2008)
Imprisonment By a Perverse Family
Brutal and harrowing British drama that locates a Texas Chain Saw Massacre-type show in an urban setting, featuring a couple known as Mum and Dad who maintain a family of imprisoned captives. This delves down into a genuinely disturbed headspace in some of the performances
Murder-Set-Pieces (2004)
Psycho Film
A psycho film about a serial killing photographer that stalks Las Vegas, this collapses under its determination to be edgy
My Little Eye (2002)
Snuff Reality TV Show
One of the best of several horror films that came out immediately following the advent of the reality tv show in the early 2000s. Director Marc Evans creates a sense of clammy claustrophobia.
The Night Evelyn Came Out of the Grave (1971)
Giallo Film
A giallo film with Anthony Steffen as an aristocrat who likes to pick up red-haired girls and kill them in the dungeon in his villa, who then becomes haunted by the ghost of his late wife
Nightmare Castle (1965)
Italian Gothic/Supernatural Retribution
Classic work of the 1960s Italian Gothic cycle featuring Barbara Steele, shot in beautifully brooding black-and-white and with a remarkable sadomasochistic undertow
No Tears in Hell (2025)
True Crime/Cannibal Murders
A True Crime film loosely based on an incident in Russia in the 1990s where a man and his mother killed homeless people and ate their flesh. This pushes the material into an admirably grim and disturbing place
Opera (1987)
Giallo Psycho-Thriller
This may well be the finest of Dario Argento’s giallo thrillers. Set around the production of an opera, this offers a series of murder set-pieces staged with an artistry that is as extraordinary as their sadism
Otis (2008)
Psycho Film
Film about a big overweight psycho who abducts girls and makes them enact a fantasy of being a cheerleader. Produced by one of the directors of The Blair Witch Project
The Passion of the Christ (2004)
Christian Torture Film
Mel Gibson wants to give us a film that shows Jesus’s suffering leading up to the Crucifixion but has taken it to such an extreme that he has actually created a Torture Porn film that gives the Saw and Hostel franchises a run for their money
Pernicious (2014)
Vengeful Thai Child Spirit
A film about three American girls who are haunted by a vengeful child spirit while in Thailand. Another post-Insidious film that uses a sinister adjective as title
Pig (2010)
Backwoods Brutality
A Backwoods Brutality entry from the increasingly underrated Adam Mason where the entire film has been shot in a single take. Often brutal but much of the film seems monotonous with indulgent improvised performances allowed to dominate the show
Pit and the Pendulum (1961)
Edgar Allan Poe Adaptation/Deranged Nobleman
The second of Roger Corman’s Edgar Allan Poe films with Vincent Price. This feels too much as though Corman was trying to make another House of Usher, nevertheless it creates its own thunderously overwrought atmosphere, even if it has little to do with the Poe story
The Pit and the Pendulum (1991)
Edgar Allan Poe Adaptation/Inquisition Horrors
Stuart Gordon’s adaptation of the Edgar Allan Poe story gets full marks for being set during the Spanish Inquisition. On the other hand, Gordon’s unserious splatter heavy approach and a campy performance from Lance Henriksen deflates the material
The Poughkeepsie Tapes (2007)
Serial Killer Found Footage Film
Another Found Footage film, a mix of interviews and video footage supposedly recorded by a serial killer. Despite some initial amateurishness, the film soon gets a disturbing grip on you in depicting the astonishing cruelty and fiendishness of the killer
Prisoners (2013)
Vigilante Parent Tortures Child Abduction Suspect
Dark and gripping thriller from Denis Villeneuve about child abductions and a distraught parent who decides to torture a suspect to find their whereabouts.; Superbly well written thriller that raises some big contemporary issues about the legitimacy of torture. Both Hugh Jackman and Jake Gyllenhaal give utterly convincing performances
Psycho Girls (1986)
Psycho Film
The debut of Canadian director Gerard Ciccoritti who should have become more well known, this goes for broke and becomes splendidly deranged
Puzzle (2014)
Sadism and Torture Games in a Japanese High School
This starts as a standard Japanese high school drama but takes a turn for the twisted where it doesn’t exactly venture into Saw territory but certainly somewhere that has taken inspiration from it. Alas, everything gets lost in a second half that is burdened by an excessively complicated and non-linear plot
The Queen of Black Magic (2019)
Haunted Orphanage
Kimo Stamboel, one half of the Mo Brothers, solo directs a film about an orphanage where deviltry and horrors are stirred on a return visit by children who were raised there
The Rats Are Coming! The Werewolves Are Here! (1972)
Werewolf Family
Maybe one of the great exploitation titles of all time quickly telescopes down to a near-unwatchable film from Andy Milligan. A Victorian-set werewolf film with rats thrown in to capitalise on the success of Willard
The Raven (1935)
Demented Edgar Allan Poe Fan
An entertainingly madcap screen pairing of Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi with the latter as a Poe-obsessed surgeon who has built a house of Poe-inspired torture devices
The Reckoning (2020)
Witch Persecutions
A few years ago, Neil Marshall seemed a major genre director on the rise with The Descent. Here he returns with a film about the historic witch persecutions
Red Room: The Forbidden King Game (1999)
Japanese Torture and Degradation Reality TV Show
Extremely twisted Japanese film that plays out like a conceptual mix of Saw and Fear Factor (even though it predates either) wherein contestants are locked in a room and get to challenge each other to engage in more and more extreme acts against the other
Resurrection Man (1998)
Irish Killing Gang
Strong and effective film set against the backdrop of The Troubles in Northern Ireland in the 1970s depicting a gang of psychopaths that killed and tortured people on the streets
The Return of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1994)
Backwoods Brutality
The third sequel to The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. Usually reviled by fans, this is not unworthwhile, capped by a genuinely insane performance from a then-unknown Matthew McConaughey
River of Fables (2015)
Anthology of Indian Folktales
An anthology of regional folktales from the author who would appear to be India’s equivalent of the Brothers Grimm. After a slow start, the four interwoven tales rather pleasingly segue into horror territory and the film works with some undeniable effect
St Agatha (2018)
Imprisoned in a Catholic Convent
Saw series director Darren Lynn Bousman makes a film set at a convent for unwed mothers in the 1950s. Is there any chance this might be a work about institutional cruelty or the plight of unwed mothers in the era? Hardly, all it really is is Bousman inflicting a series of tortures on the girls
Salo or 120 Days of Sodom (1975)
Sadism, Torture and Depravity
Pier Paolo Pasolini’s adaptation of the work by the Marquis de Sade is a catalogue of depravities and tortures and one of the most disturbing films ever made
Saw (2004)
Killer's Sadistic Games
Forget the grim and sadistic sequels that followed, this low-budget directorial debut from James Wan is a masterwork that conjures unbearable dread and tension in its study of characters forced to consider the horribly inconceivable
Saw II (2005)
Killer's Sadistic Games
The first sequel to the sleeper success of Saw where Darren Lynn Bousman inherits the director’s chair but delivers a film that lacks the torturous suspense that James Wan gave the original
Saw III (2006)
Killer's Sadistic Games
Third of the Saw films and the point where director Darren Lynn Bousman places the series’ focus on grim gore-drenched sadism and torture
Saw 3D (2010)
Killer's Sadistic Games
Supposedly the final chapter of the Saw saga – where the sole novelty on offer is gore and body parts coming out the screen in 3D. This is conducted with a tired lack of effort that makes for tedium-inducing watching
Saw IV (2007)
Killer's Sadistic Games
Fourth of the Saw films, the third under Darren Lynn Bousman who has placed an increasing emphasis on torturous extremes at the expense of credible plotting
Saw V (2008)
Killer's Sadistic Games
Fifth of the Saw films. By now the series has developed such a complicated backstory it is difficult following how it all pieces together
Saw VI (2009)
Killer's Sadistic Games
Sixth time around and the backstory is starting to become so excessively complicated it is hard to follow what is going on. All the gruesome torturings now seem passe, although this does redeem itself somewhat in making a few black digs at the medical health industry
Saw X (2023)
Saw Sequel
The Saw series is back and this has been getting some of the best reviews of any entries in the series
Seed (2007)
Executed Killer's Revenge
Uwe Boll ventures into Torture Porn territory with this tale of a brutish serial killer who returns from the electric chair on a trail of vengeance against his condemners
A Serbian Film (2010)
Snuff Filmmaking
Possibly the most extreme film ever made, a venture into the underground of Serbain snuff filmmaking. A film that holds back from breaking no taboo and ventures into exceedingly disturbing places
Sick Girl (2007)
Teenage Girl on a Killing and Torture Spree
Portrait of a disturbed teenage girl on a killing and torture spree. Makes fictitious claims to be based on a true story but mostly seems designed to outrage an audience. At which, despite an undeniable amateurishness, you cannot deny it succeeds
Singapore Sling (1990)
Torture and Perverse Goings-On
Completely demented Greek film about a mother and daughter imprisoning and torturing people in a big old house
Skeleton Crew (2009)
Disturbed Film Director Recreates Snuff Movies
Not to be confused with the Stephen King story collection, this is about a film crew shooting a film in an abandoned asylum about murders conducted there who discover a trove of snuff movies whereupon the director becomes obsessed with recreating them
Slaughtered Vomit Dolls (2006)
Sadism and Torture
A hardcore and irredeemably nasty film, this has the aesthetic of a snuff movie and features lots of scenes of victims tortured and vomiting
Snuff (1976)
Snuff Movie/Cult Killings
Arguably the world’s first Found Footage film, this gained a notoriety by conducting a scam that tried to sell it as a real snuff movie
Spiral: From the Book of Saw (2021)
Killer’s Sadistic Games
The Saw series is revived sort of, featuring the activities of a Jigsaw copycat, otherwise this offers up all the familiar essentials in all but name
The Strange World of Coffin Joe (1968)
Horror Anthology
Brazil’s Jose Mojica Marins became a cult figure for his Coffin Joe films; this is an anthology sold under the Coffin Joe banner. Without the Coffin Joe presence, all we have is a series of not very well directed pieces that linger on perversity, although the final segment does stand out memorably
Strangeland (1998)
Psycho Sadist
80s outrage rocker Dee Snider writes and stars in this horror film where he plays a freakish serial killer who is demonised by parents
Takut: Faces of Fear (2008)
Indonesian Horror Anthology
An anthology of horror tales from Indonesia, most being too short to make much distinction,, the exception being The Mo Brothers gore-drenched first film Dara
Tales from the Crypt (1972)
Horror Anthology/Comic-Book Adaptation
Amicus adapts several stories from the notorious EC Comics as one of their anthology films. Missing is EC’s black humour but this is a worthwhile Amicus anthology
Tales of Mystery and Imagination (1968)
Edgar Allan Poe Anthology
Trilogy of Edgar Allan Poe tales from three European directors. Roger Vadim’s opening episode drags but both Louis Malle and Federico Fellini deliver standout works in their respective segments
Tenebrae (1982)
Giallo Psycho-Thriller
Another of Dario Argento’s giallo psycho-thrillers with all the stylistically wild and over-the-top deaths one expects as a horror writer finds people being murdered with pages from his books in their mouths
Territories (2010)
Rogue Border Guards Torture Tourists
An appealingly politicised variant on the Backwoods Brutality film in which two rogue US border guards decide to set up their own home Guantanamo Bay … not Torture Porn but an effectively brutal study on the effect of torture
The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974)
Backwoods Brutality
An absolute horror classic, a film that has been conceived as a harrowing assault on one’s nerves. This has become a landmark genre classic and led to numerous sequels and copies but rarely any that matched the original
Texas Chainsaw (2013)
Backwoods Brutality
A Texas Chainsaw sequel in 3D with chainsaws and gore coming out at the screen seems the complete antithesis of the raw savagery of the original. The result is like a formulaic modern slasher, while the film is wrecked by a ridiculous reversal of sympathies in the last half
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 (1986)
Backwoods Brutality
The first sequel to The Texas Chain Saw Massacre where Tobe Hooper returns and pushes the series into an outrageously black sense of humour
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003)
Backwoods Brutality
A remake of Tobe Hooper’s landmark classic that presaged a host of inferior 70s/80s horror remakes throughout the 2000s/10s. What we have is now a different film although not entirely an uninteresting one
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning (2006)
Backwoods Brutality
Prequel to the 2003 Texas Chainsaw Massacre remake, which sets out to tell the origin story of the cannibal family. New director Jonathan Liebesman pushes the gore and sadism to Torture Porn extremes
The Theatre Bizarre (2011)
Horror Anthology
A horror anthology featuring episodes from seven different directors. As with other anthologies, the episodes vary in quality, ranging between the so-so, the mostly quite good and one standout segment
Three … Extremes (2004)
Asian Horror Anthology
Standout horror anthology designed to highlight episodes from three Asian directors – Hong Kong’s Fruit Chan, South Korea’s Park Chan-wook and Japan’s Takashi Miike – all of whom are on top form
3 from Hell (2019)
Family of Psychos
Rob Zombie is back,, making the third in his trilogy of Firefly films following House of 1000 Corpses and The Devil’s Rejects. It is all fairly much the same as before where Zombie’s sympathies are cleanly with the family of psychopaths and their murderous rampage.
Timber Falls (2007)
Backwoods Brutality
By the numbers Backwoods Brutality where a woman is imprisoned by crazed backwoods fundamentalists in order to bear them a child
To Your Last Death (2019)
Animation/Brutal Survival in an Office Building/Alien Game
Animated film that is gore-drenched and certainly not for children. Imagine The Belko Experiment conceived as a videogame where the heroine has to survive an office of people trying to kill her while aliens bet on the outcome
Tonight I’ll Possess Your Corpse (1967)
Malevolent and Sadistic Undertaker
The second and more sophisticated of the Ze do Caixao/Coffin Joe films with director Jose Mojica Marins as a diabolic undertaker who delights in inflicting a catalogue of tortures on the weak-minded
The Tortured (2010)
Couple Torture Paedophile
A couple abduct and torture a paedophile who killed their son. Hard to tell if this is an edgy out-there film or the most tasteless concept that Torture Porn cinema has tried so far. Alas, a banal tv movie handling kills any possibility of the former
Train (2008)
Torture Porn/Organ-Harvesting Train
A blatant copy of Hostel featuring tourists caught aboard a train in Ukraine that runs an organ-harvesting operation
The 12 Slays of Christmas (2016)
Christmas Horror Anthology
From Troma films, this is an anthology made up of twelve Christmas-themed short horror films for what supposed leading indie directors – so acclaimed I’ve only heard of two of them before
Undocumented (2010)
Vigilantes Torture Mexican Illegal Immigrants
A Found Footage film that gets political – in this case, featuring a group of American vigilantes torturing Mexican illegal immigrants. Not quite full on Torture Porn but holds a darkly barbed bite
Untraceable (2008)
Murders Live on the Internet
Gregory Hoblit has proven a fine director but this film about a site showing murders live on the internet feels like an hysterical rant about the dangers of the internet masquerading as a thriller
Vacancy (2007)
Remote Motel Torture and Sadism
A reasonable film clearly influenced by Hostel with Luke Wilson and Kate Beckinsale as a married couple who sign into a backroads motel used to shoot snuff movies
Vacancy 2: The First Cut (2009)
Remote Motel Torture and Sadism
Passable sequel (or rather prequel) to the remote motel snuff movie thriller Vacancy. Even though a throwaway effort, it manages to build an okay head of steam
V/H/S/99 (2022)
Anthology of Found Footage Horror Tales
The fifth film of the Found Footage horror anthology series, including one episode that is among the best of the series so far
Vile (2011)
Sadism and Torture
I’m tempted to make a comment about this being a film that offers its own critical summary in its title but this Saw wannabe is so tame it fails even that. Hard to believe a film with a premise about a group of people forced to torture one another could emerge so dramatically uninteresting
Viva La Muerte (1971)
Sadism and Surrealism
Obscure film in which director Fernando Arrabal depicts a series of vignettes from his childhood depicting the sadism and cruelty of the Spanish Fascists
WΔZ (2007)
Serial Killer Thriller
Serial killer thriller that eventually emerges as I Spit on Your Grave reimagined as a police procedural. Much effort is made to portray a grim urban environment but little to engage as a thriller, although Selma Blair owns the show as the avenged woman in the latter third
Wolf Creek (2005)
Australian Backwoods Brutality
Making dubious claim to be based on real-life, this courted considerable controversy with its violence. Essentially an Australian Texas Chain Saw Massacre, Greg McLean readily pushes things to extremes
Wolf Creek 2 (2013)
Australian Backwoods Brutality
Greg McLean and John Jarratt return to the Australian Backwood Brutality saga of Wolf Creek for a second outing that is just as effective as the first. McLean often pushes the material into black humour and creates at least one sequence that makes for genuinely uncomfortable watching
The Woman (2011)
Uncivilised Wild Woman/Sadism and Brutality
Lucky McKee’s highly controversial film about a family man who makes a feral woman prisoner is out-there, takes-no-prisoners horror. Forget the kneejerk reactions, this is brutal, highly original and with a whiplash sense of dark humour
Would You Rather (2012)
Deadly Party Game
The old party game about choosing between two difficult decisions is spun out into a rather lame attempt to make another Saw. Given a generic commercial handling, the film fails to get inside the psychological tension of its life and death decisions