A horror movie franchise provides audiences with more than enough grizzly scenes of torture, also knows as gore porn. Enough to satisfy even our most sadistic sides. There is something very fascinating about seeing humans in compromising situations that keeps audiences almost hypnotized by gruesome images involving torture. We watch to see the struggle, the fear, the instinctual reactions and how futile they are. I think, secretly, we watch to see what sort of things we would do if we were ever in the position. Sometimes, though, there are times when movies like Hostel and Saw, infamous torture-laden films, are just too much. I know quite a few people who cannot sit through more than ten minutes of even the mildest of torture movies. Good thing there is television! Television has opened up the entertainment highway to lovers of survival torture, offering shows that provide comedic bouts of masochism to downright stomach upsetting testers of pain tolerance. What makes these television substitutes so great is that we don't feel bad for watching them. Why? Because all of the guests and contestants on the show are there because they want to be, which makes enjoying the show okay! I have done the dirty work of finding such shows and compiling them into a list of ten torture shows fit for audiences ranging from least to most amount of physical, mental and emotional trauma.
10. American Gladiators
Starting off our list is the somewhat tame American Gladiators, a show which subjected its contestants to obstacle courses filled with body-building mutants in skimpy spandex outfits. Generally an entertaining show to watch, it provided a sort of filtered torture for audiences. Two contestants from each gender, usually wannabe strong men and women or high school jocks, are thrown into mini games where they are racing the clock and simultaneously thwarting offensive moves by the American Gladiators. Whether they be dodging tennis balls aimed meticulously for their fleshy bodies or smacking away giant Q-Tips while balancing on foam pedestals above moats of water, the average Joes put up one mean fight after another to get to the final obstacle course where they run through the course against their average joe counterpart. The reason why this show is so torturous is because, more often than not, the contestants just dont stand a chance against the American Gladiators. With names like Lazer and Diamond, who would? The gladiators far outweigh the contestants in muscle mass alone and are so accustomed to the tricks of the structure in each mini-game that its like watching an ant climb uphill and knocking it back down to the bottom. The contestants complete refusal for failure is what makes this show entertaining and, when they win in the end, it makes the show worth watching. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lul2VsRg26U