Before concluding Saw week with a review of Saw V, it's important to step back and to see the influence the film has had. Saw, upon its release, certainly struck a chord with viewers who were not accustomed to the savagery the film presented, and some just plain old liked the blood. In fact, the term "torture porn" was coined as a result of just this sort of movie.

The first recorded use was in a review of Hostel by David Edelstein. I may argue that Hostel does not fit quite as neatly in this category, but the use of torture as an element of this film is hard to dispute. However, Saw came first, and let producers know that there was a market, a healthy one, for this sort of film.

What followed was a kitchen sink approach to releasing. Everything from the inevitable Saw sequels, as well as the woefully inferior Hostel II, to other releases like Rob Zombie's The Devil's Rejects, Captivity and Turistas. All included some element of kidnapping and torture. There is no question that these movies are horror films, and that they are disturbing to the average viewer and some horror fans. The question is, where do they fall into the pantheon of horror?

At this point, it is difficult to assess the staying power of this type of film. As of its first day Saw V had already recouped its production costs, so there is profit there for producers looking to turn a buck on a mainstream horror film. That's a good thing for horror fans who want to see more genre films in theaters. On the other hand, none of these films, with the exception of the original entries into the Hostel and Saw franchises and the bold The Devil's Rejects, have any personality. It becomes a formula as fixed as the slasher film - gather your victims, capture them, show them tortured to death on screen.

As we discussed previously on the subject of the splatter film, I believe there is a place for this. In the same way that the splatter film presents the desecration of the flesh, so do these "torture porn" films. They force the audience to see the human form systematically destroyed by another, marrying two recurring themes in horror - that of the loss of control and the destruction of the body. It's a recipe that is sure to elicit a response, good or bad, from viewers if done with any sense of competence.

The thing I am most concerned about in this trend is that low-budget filmmakers, some of whom are quite talented and can pull it off, will adopt this as the new zombie film, the style that anyone can do on any budget. This will lead to some truly awful films that will illuminate the labeling of torture porn as being a very accurate description. Films that have nothing to offer but depictions of death in its many forms fall into the same category as the Faces of Death series - they are novelty, but little else in the hands of filmmakers who have nothing real to say.