"Hostel: Part II" and "Captivity," two films released this summer that featured women being tormented in grisly fashion, bombed at the box office, leading some to suspect that audiences have tired of watching people getting sliced and diced.
But the bloody Rob Zombie remake of the horror movie classic "Halloween," while not a "torture porn" film per se, was a huge hit over Labor Day weekend, generating $30.6 million at the box office. So that could bode well for the "Saw" franchise, the granddaddy of the "torture porn" genre.
The first "Saw" released in 2004 was a surprise hit, generating $55.2 million at the box office while "Saw II" and last year's "Saw III" grossed $87 million and $80 million, respectively. And one thing that "Saw" has in its favor is that it has carved out, so to speak, a nice opening weekend. This movie, like its three predecessors, will come out right before Halloween.
"October is the month for horror films and even though we've seen a decline in horror films this year, "Saw" is the dominant horror franchise, so you can't go wrong with that," said Gitesh Pandya, editor of BoxOfficeGuru.com, a movie industry research firm.
So if "Saw IV" is a hit, don't be surprised to see "Saw V" come out in October 2008. But if it disappoints like "Hostel: Part II" then it might finally be time to put a nail in the "torture porn" coffin.
