Cinema as an art form has always had the power to shock and horrify. Think of Italian horror films such as Cannibal Holocaust, Lars von Trier’s films, or the infamous 120 Days of Sodom. As a means of promoting the cultural hegemony of our time, film had been largely unchallenged in its dominance, until the advent of YouTube and the Internet. What cinematographers have always elected to shock us with has often been the extreme, and at times, the absurd. Collectively, it seems many are drawn to forms of more intimate horror, of the killer behind the curtain shower, or the torturer in Hostel.
Personally, I have never found such films of interest: my dominant right-wing disgust reflex guards against this. As cultural phenomena, however, I find them fascinating: what compels the enjoyment...