[alkytrio666]

That depends on how well the victims are written, and what their torture is intended to make me feel.

Examples:

Good: Straw Dogs- Here is a film which pours an incredible amount of suffering on its central characters, and because its central characters are so innocent and likeable, we feel their pain deeply. But the point of the film isn't to be a torture movie, as we soon find out; unlike other films which revolve around a rape, there is a striking ambiguity around the event, and it makes its characters subjects to be studied and considered; does Amy enjoy the rape- and if so, is it rape?; is the violence that David unleashes after the event retribution for the people who have hurt his wife, or is this a pent-up barbarism which he was never able to vent before?; or, if the backlash is truly about the event, is David's fury for the victimization of his wife or revenge for his own humiliation?; who's right and who's wrong when one party strikes first with sexual aggression and the other fights back with murder? These are questions that never get answered, but they are presented for us to consider, and this is the purpose of the film.

Bad: Hostel- This is victimization for the sole purpose of victimization, and any "message" Roth tries to submit at the last second is only a social excuse for his graphic fantasies. Generally I stop caring about a film when it stops caring about its characters, and with Hostel there was never even time to make this transition. The central characters in the film are ugly people, the stereotypes of college-aged men who have no interest outside of getting fucked up and fucking (which works out nicely for Roth, who in turn gets to show lots of boobies). What ensues is a radical exploitation of torture violence, turning these lifeless and one-dimensional kids into victims; but which side are we supposed to be on? Obviously the reason the film was made was to show gratuitous graphic violence, so Roth doesn't seem too concerned with the salvation of his characters- and since a director's vision is an audience's guiding light, we hardly care either. I don't enjoy watching this kind of victimization without any kind of purpose outside of making its viewers squirm. I'm not into sadism as entertainment.