Torture Porn

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-ix

   PDF

2. Introduction: ‘Welcome to Your Worst Nightmare’

   1. Introduction: ‘Welcome to Your Worst Nightmare’

      • Steve Jones

      Pages 1-10

3. ‘Torture Porn’ (Category)

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 11-11

      PDF

   2. ‘The Past Catches Up to Everyone’: Lineage and Nostalgia

      • Steve Jones

      Pages 13-26

   3. ‘Bend to Our Objectives’: ‘Torture Porn’ as Press Discourse

      • Steve Jones

      Pages 27-39

   4. ‘No-one Approves of What You’re Doing’: Fans and Filmmakers

      • Steve Jones

      Pages 40-53

4. ‘Torture’ (Morality)

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 55-62

      PDF

   2. ‘Your Story’s Real, and People Feel That’: Contextualising Torture

      • Steve Jones

      Pages 63-81

   3. ‘Some are Victims. Some are Predators. Some are Both’: Torturous Positions

      • Steve Jones

      Pages 82-100

   4. ‘In the Land of the Pig, the Butcher Is King’: Torture, Spaces, and Power

      • Steve Jones

      Pages 101-119

5. ‘Porn’ (Extremity)

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 121-128

      PDF

   2. ‘Ladies First’?: Torture Porn, Sex, and Misogyny

      • Steve Jones

      Pages 129-149

   3. ‘Why Are You Crying? Aren’t You Having Fun?’: Extreme Porn

      • Steve Jones

      Pages 150-169

   4. ‘You Will Not Believe Your Eyes … or Stomach’: Hardcore Horror

      • Steve Jones

      Pages 170-186

6. Conclusion: ‘Will You Continue?’: Beyond ‘Torture Porn’

   1. Conclusion: ‘Will You Continue?’: Beyond ‘Torture Porn’

      • Steve Jones

      Pages 187-192

7. Back Matter

   Pages 193-232

   PDF

The first monograph to critically engage with the controversial horror film subgenre known as 'torture porn', this book dissects press responses to popular horror and analyses key torture porn films, mapping out the broader conceptual and contextual concerns that shape the meanings of both 'torture' and 'porn'.

• bibliography
• concept
• discourse
• film
• misogyny
• morality
• oral discourse
• press
• torture

'This pioneering study bravely goes to unchartered territories in order to explain the label's implied porn-horror confluence and examine critically neglected subgenres.' - Dejan Ognjanovic, Rue Morgue

• Northumbria University, UK

  Steve Jones

Steve Jones is Lecturer in Media at Northumbria University, UK. His research focuses primarily on the horror genre and topics of representation and gender, particularly on representations of sex and violence. He has published widely in international journals such as the Journal of Japanese and Korean Cinema, Scope, Horror Studies, Animation and Sexualities. This is his first book.

Policies and ethics