Some have said that horror films double as windows into our subconscious fears.

If that is indeed the case, then the last two years of horror films, from "Wolf Creek" to "Hostel," "High Tension" and now "Turistas," have all pointed to two fears trumping all others: That the world hates America, and that policy of torture prisoners, which we’ve batted around so callously since 9/11, is bound to come back and doom us in the end.

Gone are the tantalizing serial killers one could reliably expect from "Halloween" or "Friday the 13th," or the grotesque-but-kinda-fun monsters that used to fill these semi-weekly, nightmarish visions. Gone are the slumber parties and loose morals that would elicit a moralistic vengeance from the gods.

In their place is an equation far more blunt and boring: Americans travel abroad, get abducted, tortured and killed. In moviemaking terms, it’s a slam-dunk, a 1-2-3 proposition that has turned the horror genre into an assembly line of the ghoulish. In movie viewing terms, it’s turned the whole game into a painfully predictable and wretchedly macabre enterprise.

Over the last few years, the only variation from one chapter to the next has been the filmmakers’ willingness to more faithfully, and brutally, depict what torture is really like. In the despicable "Wolf Creek," the most gruesome stuff happens just out of sight, in the shadows of the dark warehouse. But in the perversely intriguing "Hostel," the torture – including the burning of a face – happens right in front of our eyes, accentuated by a spotlight no less.

Now take that one step further. In the opening shot of "Turistas," we are zoomed in on the eye of the torture victim herself, our ears inches from her lips as she pleads for her life and screams for mercy. We watch the eye look away, tear up, try to remain composed – a dilated pronouncement of what’s to come.

And then the music perks up, the credits start to zip by, and we’re bouncing along a bumpy Brazillian jungle road with a gang of giggly anglo tourists, boys complaining about the dangerous driving and the girls too distracted by their photography to much care.

Not surprisingly, the bus breaks down – rolling off a cliff no less – and the gang suddenly finds themselves stranded at a beachside resort as they wait for another ride, a temporary oasis that seems too good to be true.

Then, in an aside so blunt and awkward it actually derails whatever sense of surprise the movie might have coming, director John Stockwell (“Blue Crush”) cuts away from the action to show two Brazilian natives on the phone. A new group of tourists have arrived, one says, come and get them.

In a fog of alcohol and drugs, IDs and money go missing. The foreigners, without a credit card or cell phone to cling to, must depend on the kindness of strangers – strangers that seem to have ulterior motives. In the dark of a stormy night, they find themselves strapped to operating tables, slightly sedated but still conscious as a doctor starts to perform surgery on them.

It’s such a graphic and disturbing third act that it begs the question: Why would anyone want to turn to this for Friday night fun? And it raises the more perverse notion that maybe, just maybe, audiences don’t flock to movies like this out of fear, but out of pure exhilaration.

Is it possible that some of these loyal horror-goers, who flock so reliably to this weekly filth, are actually more intrigued by what they’re seeing – bodies being ripped apart, Americans in dire peril – than disturbed?

We’ve passed the point of escapist chills, people. We’re not in Kansas anymore. I, for one, would like to go back.

by: Steven Snyder steven@zertinet.com, Published 2006-12-07