10 Most Polarising Horror Movies Of All Time

Eli Roth's 2005 film Hostel, along with the first in the Saw franchise, introduced the world the the horror sub genre "torture porn". It's a self-explanatory moniker which was coined in a derogatory sense, somewhat in the spirit of the expression "video nasties" which circulated in the 1980s.

Hostel certainly contains a lot of torture - the entire premise is centered around a group of backpacking teens who find themselves kidnapped so that wealthy elites can pay large sums to torture them to death in a manner of their choosing. Throw in some softcore porn nudity and it's easy to see where the "torture porn" label came from.

Pay a visit to the user reviews for Hostel on IMDB and the polarization leaps off the screen. Dozens of one star reviews sit alongside nine star reviews, the former deriding it as cheap and lazy horror made for shock value but lacking any substance, while the latter praise it for its commitment to hardcore violent thrills filmed through an unflinching lens.

It was exactly the kind of controversy horror movie directors love, and there's no doubt that Eli Roth took any criticisms on the chin. From a budget of just $4.8 million, Hostel went on to rake in over $80 million at the box office.