Cinema Journal

First identified and coined by David Edelstein in his New York magazine article “Now Playing at Your Local Multiplex: Torture Porn,” the term “torture porn” refers to a series of horror films, primarily the Saw (2004–2010) and Hostel (2005–2011) series, that enjoyed significant popularity in the decade following the attacks of September 11, 2001.¹ Aaron Michael Kerner’s Torture Porn in the Wake of 9/11: Horror, Exploitation, and the Cinema of Sensation is an important work in film studies, as it represents only the second volume published so far on this topic.² The first volume on the subject, Torture Porn: Popular [End Page 147] Horror after “Saw” by Steve Jones, was published in 2013 and differs from Kerner’s volume in a variety of ways, most notably in the choice of evidence discussed: Jones limits his analysis to film, but he includes international films beyond American production.³ Kerner, in contrast, focuses on US products and extends his study to television as well (24 [2001–2010], Dexter [2006–2013], and The Following [2013–2015]). While Jones explores the global appeal of torture porn, Kerner’s intention is to delineate torture porn as a precise post-9/11 phenomenon; therefore, his decision to explore domestic media exclusively resonates well with the book’s purpose.

The monograph offers seven chapters that define and explore torture porn, including a commentary about the critical discourses that have developed about the genre, both within and outside of academia. The author provides in-depth discussion and examples from a wide variety of texts to illustrate generic tropes and visual motifs that pertain to torture porn. In doing so, Kerner locates torture porn within the established tradition of exploitation and slasher cinema while simultaneously addressing the contemporary specificity of the genre and its audience. Instead of commenting on the content of each single chapter separately, this review guides the reader through the major themes explored in the book, across different chapters, in the hope of offering a more cohesive analysis of the volume’s main ideas.

First, Kerner’s argumentative premise stems from his desire to clarify how the denigration of torture porn by critics who claim that the subgenre lacks “any apparent redeeming moral qualities” originates from a “veiled prejudice against films that emphasize the spectacle or fail to adhere to conventional narrative structures.”⁴ Kerner situates the discourse of torture porn within the theoretical framework offered by Linda Williams in her work on body genres, hard-core pornography, and cinematic spectacle.⁵ Williams is instrumental for Kerner’s exploration of the unique visual elements of torture porn in relation to the process of physical engagement of the audience with the genre. Kerner identifies at least three factors that justify the connection between horror and pornography in torture porn films and television texts (in addition to the general focus on the body): the stylistic elements in the mise-en-scène (a long shot of an indoor—often constrained—space followed by a series of progressively closer shots that narrow the look on the tortured victim or, in the case of pornography, the male performer); the story-line format of torture and hard-core porn, which usually consists of episodic vignettes (as opposed to a more structured narrative); and torture porn’s assimilation of the practices of the hard-core pornography industry, which helps to explain the genre’s financial success.⁶

Second, Kerner points out the significance of torture porn in the social context of post-9/11 America. Specifically, the author illustrates how film series such as Saw and Hostel depict a fundamental contradiction in US society and expose how Americans “imagine [themselves] as agents of righteousness, the torchbearers of [End Page 148] freedom and democracy” while simultaneously acknowledging their “implicit or even explicit sanctioning of torture” (particularly as...