Torture fetish

I wanted to add my thoughts regarding this movie, inspired by my agreement to this post by JayRene (http://tinyurl.com/6t4cgzr). This movie is 60 minutes of build-up followed by 20 minutes of torture porn, disguised as an apparent warning to teens and parents to fear online predators. A poster on this blog (http://tinyurl.com/73xgjt6) claiming to be the director/writer, Michael Goi, wrote this:

"Although my intention wasn't to shock people into internet abstinence, I did want to point out that kids today know so much more about social networking technology than their parents do, and that's a real problem. And I'd prefer not to hear about another multiple sex offender being released from prison early for good behavior, then immediately killing some kid. If my movie wakes people up and makes them angry enough to change things, mission accomplished."

Unless I missed it, no mention in the movie is made of "Josh" being a multiple sex offender or formerly in prison. I believe Goi is referring to Richard Allen Davis, who was released from prison and soon after, he kidnapped, (likely) raped and (definitely) murdered Polly Klaas. (The internet was not at all involved with this case). "Megan" has been endorsed by Marc Klaas of the KlaasKids Foundation according to Goi's IMDB biography. He hopes the movie wakes people up and makes them angry enough to change things (regarding prison sentences for sex offenders, sex offender registries, etc., I would suppose).

If the "be careful about who you talk to on social networking" message wasn't already splattered over all media (e.g, "To Catch a Predator" (2004-2007)), I would state "by all means, people need to know about this! More power to movies like these!". But teenagers are informed from TV shows, reality shows, magazine articles, billboards, news stories, etc. A small direct-to-DVD movie is not necessary to help them and their parents, etc. use the appropriate cautions. So I believe that director Michael Goi does not have a leg to stand on with that argument. I agree with the DVDVerdict.com critic who called this movie an "exploitative piece of trash masquerading as a public service announcement." The moral message of the movie is secondary to the torture porn aspect. No one is going to watch an entire movie of torture porn. Both "Hostel" movies have considerable build-up before the explicit gory torture begins.

Before I write the following sentences, I want it to be clear that I do not think that Michael Goi is a danger to anyone. That being said, I would not want to spend a flight from Seattle to Sydney sitting next to him. He seems to be a person who is (unhealthily?) fascinated with the tragedy of what might happen to a very young girl seduced/abducted/tortured/killed.

During this movie's conception, did he read books about Polly Klaas, or Ashley Pond and Miranda Gaddis (close friends who were abducted, raped, murdered by Ward Weaver in Oregon a few months apart)? (Note that their first initials are the same as the characters in this movie). We know that the case of Carlie Brucia influenced the movie as Goi recreated her abduction that was captured on a surveillance camera (http://tinyurl.com/6w9pqjr). What about serial killer Charles Ng who filmed him and his partner torturing and murdering his victims? Or John Couey, who buried his nine-year old victim Jessica Lunsford alive after repeatedly raping her? I could have sworn that I saw somewhere that Goi claimed his movie was "based on true events," which makes it sound like a docudrama, and not mostly from his lurid imagination, taking bits and pieces from various tragedies. On the IMDB plot summary (written by Goi), he writes that it's "based on research into seven actual cases of child abduction." I would like to know if the parents of those missing children appreciate their tragedies being exploited.

The internet was not involved in any of these cases listed above. Again, I do not think Goi gains any sexual gratification from thinking about a girl horrifically tortured, raped, murdered. I don't think he could be a regular member of society if that was the case. But he may still "get off" from it, in a completely non-sexual way.

There's no other reason to explain the inclusion of photos of Megan strapped into medieval-style stocks with her mouth held open with metal prongs and also some sort of nose plug. (Was this inspired from one of the seven researched cases?) The implication is that her mouth is being held open for the purposes of forced oral sex. We know that "Josh" is kidnapping the girls out of some sexual motivation, in addition to torture, considering that he rapes Amy.

Alone, the torture photo would be disturbing enough, except that it's amplified from Megan's oral sex monologue during the first third of the movie. Transcribed, Megan says "I think at some point I opened my mouth to say something like 'get that smelly thing out of my face,' and he just shoved it in." "Did you choke?" Amy asks. "Yeah, because it was huge. My mouth was wide open, like this. I was starting to turn blue because I couldn't breathe. And he tells me to breathe through my nose."

She goes on, describing his thrusting into her mouth and pulling her hair. Are we not supposed to equate the BDSM-style torture photo with this story? Megan, not incidentally, is describing being abused by a 17-year-old counselor (he looked kinda like "the weird killer guy" from 'Seven') when she was 10 at summer camp. We later learn that her stepfather sexually abused her from the age of 9.

The purpose of these scenes is explain her promiscuity and also to explain her desire to be "loved" by a male figure. (You often heard about such cases on the syndicated radio show "Loveline" co-hosted by celebrity doctor Dr. Drew Pinsky.) If Goi was seeking to make the viewer uncomfortable, he succeeded. The world is full of young children who are sexually assaulted by authority figures. His movie does not work if it is an adult or even a college student being seduced and eventually murdered by an online predator. Adults are relatively intelligent and mature. smart. A teenager, on the other hand, is naive and anxious to be loved and her fate can be interpreted as tragic instead of exploitative. I find Goi's apparent fascination reminiscent of a history teacher I knew in high school. This teacher was clearly quite preoccupied with the horrors of the Holocaust. When I read the Stephen King novella "Apt Pupil", the Todd character reminded me exactly of this teacher.

Torture porn is popular right now. The "Saw" movies have made $800 million worldwide. The "Hostel" movies made $120 million. Michael Goi knew exactly what he was doing when he made this movie. While Michael Goi would have you believe that he made this movie to make people aware of the dangers of sociopaths and psychopaths present on the internet, this movie is an excuse to depict torture porn. There is no other excuse for a 20 minute scene showing a 13-year-old character being humiliated, raped, tortured, spontaneously developing empathy/love for her captor (i.e., Stockholm Syndrome), and then slowly murdered. Goi does not subscribe to the filmmaking philosophy of thriller director Alfred Hitchcock, a master of making the audience feel more ill at ease with less explicitness. In short, we are more scared of what we don't see ("Jaws" is a great example). Goi, rather, insists on showing us everything and in doing so, exposes the movie's true motive. If he could have made it more explicit without compromising the movie's salability, I'm sure he would have done so.

Thanks for reading.

(As an postscript, I'm somewhat surprised that he did not cast a blonde girl as Megan, as society associates blondes with being the bad girl ("Dawson's Creek", "Halloween" are examples) with the brunette being pure/good. But Goi goes to various, increasingly absurd lengths to paint Megan as a 'slut' and Amy as a good girl. Amy has a pile of stuffed animals on her bed. Megan's stuffed animals are regulated to her bookshelf. Megan jokes about the attractiveness of Amy's dad (shades of "American Beauty") and willingness to strip on Amy's webcam. Amy wants to make a documentary about her cat.)