User blog comment:Inferno Pendragon/Horror, Grimdark and Ethics/@comment-27560932-20150824120305

The Tortured seems to be a rather special case even among the grimdark genre. Still, in general, these uber-cynical torture-porn type movies really have no point to exist. A film or any other work purely meant to shock and disgust the viewer... what kind of purpose of that to achieve? That's not art. That's not even good filmmaking. I loathe the people who make such atrocities and in doing so desensitizing audiences to these brutalities.

Although this kind of horror has been done right (a good portion of the cosmic/Lovecraftian horror genre blends in unique, surreal psychological horror to engage the reader while still presenting a pessimistic mood, instead of just relying on gore and visceral horror, and I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream, despite its subject matter, is still a masterpiece of writing) people tend to use only excuse plots for horror like this. The end result is just a mindless, soulless, and plotless display of cringe-worthy violence, except half the time you're not cringing because you don't care what's happening to these characters. Evidently, neither do the directors; the "protagonists" are just tools to be tortured and put through hell without end. These kinds of stories have to be balanced out by some form of hope or soul, or at the very least good writing to make you care about these characters. If you just want some snuff film with no point, good for you. I suggest you get help.

For me, the worst offender of the "movies" that only serve to disgust is A Serbian Film. That's nothing more than pointless, exploitive schlock shock. At least a film like Megan is Missing at least tried to present some sort of a message. Granted, it was poorly researched and the message ended up overblown to a point where it became little more than cynical torture porn. You can't say the same for A Serbian Film. It's just purely and utterly disgusting and one of the hardest things one can sit through.

For every smart horror that has actual intellectual depth, effective, lasting horror as opposed to cheap jumps and bloodfests, and engaging writing and characters, there's going to be at least one Human Centipede, some soulless garbage that cares about nothing more than shocking the audience with how "edgy" and "dark" it can be. That's not good horror and the fact people still feel an urge to make these kinds of films makes me worried.