She's not just "in captivity." She is kidnapped, held illegal against her will and gruesomely tortured. It's abused woman voyeurism.

I just wanted to clear that up.

That ad is all over the CTA. I wish I'd thought to snap a picture of it juxtaposed with the posters on the platforms urging people to stop violence against women by choosing not to support music or films with misogynistic messages. That will have to be a project for my next trip to Chicago.

I remembered hearing about posters for that movie. Check this one out, it was banned from being used in the US.

http://64.111.216.18/ul/2393-cap2.jpg

the movie looks like yet another deranged "torture porn" for the less evolved among us.

although I did see a hilarious bit of graffiti on one of those ads a few weeks ago, just after the Unmentionable Incarceration...

All the person wrote was:

Paris?

I laughed!

Along with hostel 2 and black snake moan there seems to be a trend for eroticised movies about torturing women.

I really don't see why more people aren't offeded by this.

Yeah, most of the blog outrage (including the Whedon letter) was about the banned ad that Jen linked to.

What's really sad is that THIS ad is actually supposed to be the TONED DOWN one they came out with after the previous one caused so much anger.

I saw one of these on my train car a few weeks ago, and while it does make me sick to see it at all (anyone seen the trailer?), the one (and only) thing that made me giggle about it was the fact that the word "grisly" was misspelled on the advert as "grizzly". Does that mean the movie tortures bears and gray-haired people as well?

Honestly, though, it's just shit like this that feeds into violence against women. Because, y'know, it's totally hot to have a chained-up Elisha Cuthbert in your basement.

aarrggg... Don't even get me started on the PR for this stupid movie. I see one of these ads practically every time I get on the Metro in DC. There was a NYtimes article last week about the upcoming film release party. The film's producer makes some joke about how the finale they are planning for the release party probably isn't even legal and how all the women's organizations are really going to love it. The article also made some weird reference to a pre-release screening they are having for representatives from women's organizations, supposedly to have a dialogue. Seeing as how that little tidbit appears in the same article with the quote about pissing of women's groups it's hard to see the pre-screening as anything more than a cynical ploy to piss off NOW so they protest and give the movie more publicity.
The trailer advertises it as "The Movie They Don't Want You to See!" I'm not sure who "they" refers to- hordes of angry feminists? Movie critics that have taste? Unfortunately the article is behind the NYTimes firewall, but if anyone has Times Select they can find it here

I read sex in thriller as sex thriller and I think that's absolutely the word for it. It's triller, but entirely pivoted upon male sexual arousal. How primative.

Still can't find the whole article, but this is the quote I was talking about.

All of which is a prelude to an undisclosed main event that, he warned last week over slices of pizza a few doors from his company’s new offices on the Sunset Strip, is “probably not legal.� “The women’s groups definitely will love it,� Mr. Solomon hinted. “I call it my personal little tribute to them.�

"This movie is certainly a horror movie and it's about abduction, but it's also about female empowerment," Solomon said.

Speaking of that lame interview, Amelie Gillette at avclub.com did an excellent fucking job. http://www.avclub.com/content/hater/what_the_captivity_party_is_going

After reading her take and Joss Wheadon's, I feel like I finally have words for those ads: It's like being mugged by the dumbest guy in your fifth grade class.

I'm not completely sure how I feel about scary movies like this. I definitely know that I don't enjoy scary movies where rape or sexual torture is shown, even if not "glorified" per se, I just don't like watching it. But I do enjoy well made thrillers... The question that I ask myself is "at what point does making a movie about something terrible become terrible?" And I'm not sure of the answer...

Yes, that NY Times article is something else. The producer mentions how the party is going to feature the Suicide Girls and "torture rooms. And then, gleefully, he also talks about how he called for reshoots once the "controversy" began to make the movie even more gruesome and now the film includes a bit where some human flesh gets put into a blender. OMG, I FEEL SO EMPOWERFUL-ED NOW!!11

On the other hand, Hostel II has completely tanked at the box office and the fact that the producer felt the need to include the blender points to, one would hope, the fact that this modern torture porn genre of "horror" has finally worn out its welcome. See also the better than expected opening of 1408, which was no great shakes as a movie but certainly didn't have a woman's face getting half sawed off by a chainsaw. (as in Hostel II.)

But this campaign, I think, is aggressively trying to market not just extreme violence against PEOPLE in general (as is the goal of the "torture porn" genre) but against women as "hot" and "edgy" and "the next step." Check out the trailer if you really want to be sick.

I love scary movies, but the latest crop of scary movies from America have been boring, unimaginative, torture-porn for halfwit frat boys.
You don't have to hate women to make a good scary movie. Check out:
Alice, Sweet Alice
A Tale of Two Sisters
Suicide Club
The Eye
George Romero's Night of the Living Dead series
Ginger Snaps
(Stupid question, but is Joss Whedon really your boyfriend?)

Ugh, Suicide Girls. *Barfs* My friend got free tix to one of their shows & said it was the worst wannabe burlesque on earth. At least real burlesque stars can *Actually* sing and/or dance or even do both. But apparently, nowadays, having a lower back tattoo, a lip piercing, & a Hot Topic dye job qualifies you as a burlesque act & "alternative."
/rant from a gawth so old she had to get her black nail polish from Party City

This is a good line from the website:

"It's a disturbing and raw, yet classy and thought-provoking film which will leave you terrified, and looking over your shoulder as you exit the theatre, wondering if you could be next".

Yup. "I am woman, hold me captive" should be the new empowerment slogan, eh?

Sophie, thanks for the Onion link- sometimes I need a reminder that assholes like Solomon probably aren't worth my wrath- mockery is a much more appropriate reaction. Thank God for the Onion!

I am so glad you guys posted about this. I went and saw a movie the other day and that preview came on, and I turned to my friend and said, "I am really tired of all these movies that fetishize hot girls getting tortured. It really freaks me out." And she just matter-o-factly answered, "Yep."

Seriously, what's the deal? It seems like there is this nationwide fetish for seeing attractive women being tortured, but it is kind of just accepted. I can't really stomach it, and amongst my male friends that makes me strange, somehow.

There is hope, though. When I saw Kill Bill in the theater, I saw it with a great male friend of mine, and during the part in which "Buck" describes how to rape a comatose Uma Thurman, he had to leave because it made him so nauseous. At least some guys don't like it.

Watching Elisha Cuthbert act is torture enough.

"The Eye" was an great Horror movie, but the pang brother's were never able able to follow it up.

"A Tales Of 2 Sister" was also great, but it took me 2 watching for me to get it (and I still have no idea what a tent on a road is suppose to symbolize). Asian horror movies are a lot more philosophical than the usual CG intensive Hollywood garbage.

I also recommend "Audition" (Japanese). It's a little bit dated, but it still freaks me out every time I watch it.

"Happiness of Katakuris" (Japanese), yes it's a musical comedy horror (with a hilarious Karaoke segment), but it is still a horror.

"Three Extremes" (Chinese, Korean, and Japanese). Three short stories in one movie that is like a "Tales Form The Crypt" travel across Eastern Asia. All three stories freaked me out (in a good way).

(Gee Takashi Miike directed in part all three of those movies, I see a trend).

The Thai movie "Nang Nak" is another romance/ghost story that is sure to give you shivers.

My favorite English thrillers (made in recent years) are "The Jacket", "The Others", and "Identity". Horror movies have to have realistic characters, and an element of realistic love among the characters for it to be any good in my book (CG gore and bad acting gets boring pretty quick). "28 Days" was also very good, but the sequel was terrible.

(Personally I prefer Hot chicks torturing men.)

Those ads have been on bus shelters (and some billboards) here in LA since mid-April (the release date was originally mid-May). I had the same reaction as Vanessa when I first saw it, and I've been repulsed ever since.

"Watching Elisha Cuthbert act is torture enough."

I couldn't agree more, and if you really want to be tortured, just watch the Sunday news pundits.

It's possible to make a horror movie about torture without it turning it into an exploitation movie (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0101597/ is an example) but this movie doesn't sound like anything other than a glorification of it. The reviews of both this movie and Hostel II were really bad (the first Hostel actually got good reviews) and I don't think it will be a success.

(Personally I prefer Hot chicks torturing men.)

Eurgh. I don't think I like that either. Sure, good horror movies can be made about torture, but anything that remotely resembles fetishizing torture makes me feel queasy, regardless of how good-looking or of what gender the torturers/victims are.

I have been seeing the woman behind the chainlink for months in San Francisco and disgusted by it, but what Jill Soloway described in L.A. defies reason.

I don't think Hostel II tanked. It got pulled from theaters by Eli Roth because there had been so much bootlegging that even reviewers were reviewing bootleg copies. He's releasing it on DVD.

Movies like 28 Days Later, The Mothman Prophecies, or The Gift are examples of good horror movies. I LOVE a quality movie that can really, really terrify you. Supernatural thrillers, virus movies, psychological "trick" movies, etc. To me, these kinds of movies take an ounce of brainpower or so and require more creativity than just "ooooo, let's splatter blood all over everything!!" A good horror movie should HAUNT you. It shouldn't make you worry that your landlord will sneak in at night, bind you with ropes, and drag you to a cell where you'll be tortured until you beg people to kill you.

The difference isn't subtle in the slightest. Horror involves fantastic circumstances and an element of unreality. Torture porn, on the other hand, is realistic. Shit like that could ACTUALLY HAPPEN. It DOES actually happen. Well, okay, aside from the fact that one day zombies ARE going to roam the earth for brains, and y'all are fools if you don't prepare for it, GOOD horror movies are totally fiction. ;-P

It's like, there's a place for realism and there's a place for total fiction. When you're talking about scaring the bejesus out of people, you're in the realm of Total Fiction. People need a place to air the negativity in their psyche, and horror films traditionally provide the outlet nightmares do for kids (and sometimes adults). When horror films cross over too much into the realm of the real world, our psyches can confuse the two, and the world itself is full of horror and terror and evil without an escape. I think the modern horror films we're seeing are like that... we see a world we don't even have to IMAGINE living in -- everything that happens in these films is one hundred percent believable. The horror is slightly exaggerated and suddenly, the real world becomes a more terrifying place.

Which isn't to say we should be fooling ourselves about the state of the world, but something "clicks" in people when they no longer FEEL SAFE. We can see the result of this in modern-day society. Horror is why we have the Patriot Act. Horror is why young men and women are dying in Iraq for no good reason. When you make horror too real, when fear hits too close to home, people become desperate. And a desperate person is a truly scary person.

But think about it -- if I see a movie about ghosts, yeah, done well, that can be pretty fucking scary. But it isn't going to make me irrationally fear my neighbor. If I see a movie about a next-door neighbor who kidnaps and tortures teenagers, though... well, how do I know that can't happen? There's no psychological mechanism telling me "it can't happen" because, well, it CAN. So when this type of fiction gets TOO close to reality, I kinda think it has the power to change reality. Just as fiction and art have the power to motivate people to do good, they have the power to instill Real Fear.

Sorry to go all meta-psychological on you. But I do think there's an important distinction between fantastic horror and realistic horror, and there's a reason the latter hasn't traditionally been done. And I think that, as a society, we do ourselves no favor when we expose people too immature to handle it (i.e., most the the people likely to be interested in it) to this level of realistic terror.

I don't know if I'm making sense... basically, I see a distinction between just SCARING people (I mean, fuck, I watched the Ring and couldn't fall asleep near a television set for a week) and CHANGING people's relationship with humanity. Traditional horror films scare you, but they don't make you irrationally fear harmless strangers. New horror films teach you that anyone you walk into in the street might follow you home and chop you to pieces, ESPECIALLY if you acknowledge their existence. This DOES something to people. I think we need to live our lives with some kind of baseline of humanity, and these new horror films are slowly robbing us of the ability to do that.

Not at all to trivialize what's actually going on in this thread, but an interesting side note that made me want to bang my head up against my desk:
http://www.manquarium.com
I hope the people who made this are the same ones watching that film, because then at least they'd be consistent in their misanthropy.

Long time reader, first time commenter.

Law Fairy, you are totally making sense. You said much better than I could exactly what I feel about the torture porn vs horror thing.

as if I needed any more reason to be head over heels for Joss Whedon and everything he does.

yes, Joss Whedon is amazing and I loved him before I even knew anything about feminism..all I knew was that he gave women what they were due and Buffy the Vampire Slayer is the best show I have ever seen :)

I also agree that this whole torture porn is completely fucked up. It drives me nuts because people actually do this kind of thing to each other and they're glamorizing it. This is different than appreciating the hannibal lector character or the movie seven. These movies are not extolling anything other than violence to others (especially women) and making it normal...

I hate hate hate SuicideGirls as a site (especially Missy and Sean) but I decided to go and look up Captivity in their news feed.

Most of them look to think it's garbage and are resentful that they're associated with it.

Curious, I went to the SuicideGirls site and saw that Wil Wheaton has expressed the most concern over SG being associated with this premiere. Then Missy steps in to explain how it's empowerful: http://209.237.250.100/news/culture/21762/

What cracks me up the most is how he's trying to upset us uptight feminazis, cause, we're so sensitive and shit. *rolls eyes* Suicide Girls? Really? I'm sooooo shocked. It makes him sound like such a fourteen-year-old. Does he fancy himself the next Marilyn Manson or something?

As a horror fan, I have to say that this torture-porn shit is unnecessary and repugnant. There's nothing titillating about it, and it's especially unnecessary to put graphic advertisements where anyone who isn't looking for them can see. I'm not one for censorship, and I don't think this movie should be banned, but there are standards for advertisements, right?

Is it just me, or is the slasher flick getting even more realistic and woman-centric? Why can't we be egalitarian in our teenager-killings like Freddy Krueger was?

Actually, carlagirl, Eli Roth doesn't control national contracts with theaters or profit margins. He doesn't get to "pull" anything from the theater, Lionsgate Films does. And if there's one thing LGF has been GREAT about, it's been maximizing the profit margins on the torture porn. Only, for Hostel II they are unable to do that. 'Cause it's not making profit. It'll make back its budget, of course, but it won't make the money the first one did. Hostel cost $4.5 million to make and in its opening weekend it grossed almost $20 million. Hostel II cost $10 million to make and in its opening weekend it made $8 million.

Where did you see that he was pulling it? Is that what Roth himself is saying? If so, that's a cute little fairy tale that he's spinning to try to cover his ass, but it isn't possible.

The Law Fairy, I think everything you're saying is SO true, especially about horror being "fantastic." As ElleMariachi pointed out, the website specifically mentions that the movie should make you think, could *I* be next??? It's just more scare-tactics teaching women to keep their heads down.

On the one hand, torture porn is obviously nasty crap--I agree completely with that. But it also seems to me to be a natural outgrowth of the slasher film. I suspect that the turn from "masked killer dismembers sexually active and/or alcohol-imbibing teenagers" to "pretty girls (and sometimes boys)) are captured and tortured to death" has something to do with the move of torture into public discourse post-9/11.

What I think I disagree with you, TLF, is the implication that horror should be completely in the realm of fantasy. For one thing, horror movies about ghastly people are not a new innovation. M, an early horror movie (1931) starring Peter Lorre was about a child-killer; Hitchcock's The Lodger, about a man who may or may not be Jack the Ripper, came even earlier, in 1927. For another, the line between what people believe and what they don't isn't as sharp as one might assume--Amityville Horror was so successful precisely because it made a truth claim, and one of the priests involved with the movie The Exorcist claimed that it was an almost entirely accurate account of his exorcism of a teenage boy. On an artistic level, I think that exploring the horror and fear of everyday life is a valid topic.

My problem with slasher films and torture porn is not that they're "realistic," as in, they could happen. It's that they eroticize torture and female suffering to a great degree, encouraging the viewer to indulge in identification with the killer/torturer--I have similar problems with Law & Order SVU. Hitchcock's Psycho has a fabulous scene indicting the viewer for that identification, when Norman watches Marion strip for the shower through a peephole in the wall. But it is an indictment; while Hitchcock was a twisted guy, at no point are you cheering "Mother" on as she knifes people. (Aside: do you know that I have a friend who is the Last Person on Earth who doesn't know the twist to Psycho?)

The problem, I think, is not that torture porn encourages us to fear each other; it's that it teaches teenage boys, their target audience, to cheer on men who torture and kill women. The opening scene of Scream 2, not a series I generally admire, I admit, is a chilling comment on that.

The Law Fairy:
Oh I am ready for the zombie attack.

"I remembered hearing about posters for that movie. Check this one out, it was banned from being used in the US.

http://64.111.216.18/ul/2393-cap2.jpg"

OMG, that poster is indeed really disgusting (not that the other one is not).

So...is she getting all hot off the rusty fence??? This is kind of off subject, but, it (Captivity) reminds of this one CSI: Miami episode a while back where these couples would deliberately simulate fake captures and have the female in captivity so the male could rescue her. What's the point? Rescue sex is supposed to be AMAZING!!! It's that whole "damsel in distress" thing. That's bullshit though because a woman can't just be saved from a life threatening situation anymore...now she OWES her rescuer. So now the whole "you owe me" expectation is no longer limited to dating I guess. That's fucking disgusting. Why is being a hero, a nice person, or whatever no longer enough?

EG: "encouraging the viewer to indulge in identification with the killer/torturer--I have similar problems with Law & Order SVU"

When does this happen in SVU? (I'm not saying it doesn't, but I certainly haven't noticed it.)

" I see a distinction between just SCARING people (I mean, fuck, I watched the Ring and couldn't fall asleep near a television set for a week) and CHANGING people's relationship with humanity. "

Thank you. This is the problem perfectly articulated. The same I would apply to misogynistic/racist/abusive porn.

If only prison was that hot for child rapists! I am so angry today. Please come and have a read:

http://cruellablog.blogspot.com/2007/07/twelve-year-old-was-asking-for-it.html