The 2009 version of Last House on the Left bears the tagline: If bad people hurt someone you love, how far would you go to hurt them back? The 1972 version of course famously had a tagline which became a catchphrase: To avoid fainting, keep repeating it’s only a movie, only a movie, only a movie . . .

Well, Last House on the Left was initially intended to be an envelope-pushing 70’s porn feature and its legacy as a movie has been far beyond that of the average only a movie flick. There is the notion that the current spate of torture porn horror movies is something new, but people like Wes Craven and Sean S. Cunningham pioneered the genre more than three decades ago. Wes Craven, most famous for Nightmare on Elm Street and Scream, wrote and directed the original Last House on the Left and Sean S. Cunningham, most famous for Friday the 13th, produced it. Before you even take into account the legions of movie-makers influenced by Craven and Cunningham, the legacy of Last House on the Left is huge simply for how its creators built on their own work. For the 2009 Last House on the Left, Craven and Cunningham both serve as producers. The director of 2009’s version is Dennis Iliadis whose main previous credit is the movie Hardcore, about two prostitutes who fall in love.

The initial torture porn grew out of 1970’s porn porn. At the time, partly because video not being used yet, any porn flick more involved than a tiny stag loop tended to be approached as a feature. A lot of the underground creative work at the time was about exploring taboos, so there was not as much differentiation in which taboos could appear in which medium. Today, if you want to feature nonconsensual sex acts in your work, you must put the violence in an R-rated movie for theatrical or DVD distribution. You may not put nonconsensual sex acts in material distributed in adult industry channels. This is not solely because the government might crack down on you if you repeatedly dare them too like Rob Black of Extreme Associates; the primary issue is that major trade publications and video distributors will not accept adult videos which feature nonconsensual acts (yes, even when it is just acting, even if it is bad acting) and companies which process payments for adult websites will not accept credit cards for material which features nonconsensual acts. Exploitation cinema is not something new for the new millennium. Where the violence and horror end up in the marketplace and where the sex and nudity end up all boils down to the restrictions of varied distribution channels.

Nonetheless, in the original Last House on the Left, most of the forced boy/girl sex and forced girl/girl sex and watersports all got left on the cutting room floor and the violence stayed in. The violence was still shocking to theatrical audiences at the time and reviewers tended to express . . . well, horror. Last House on the Left features horrible chainsaw brutality before Scarface or Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

Here is how you know Wes Craven is an original creative mind: He acknowledges his influences. He looked to Ulla Isaksson’s script for Ingmar Bergman’s Jungfrukällan or Virgin Spring for the plotline for Last House on the Left. And Wes Craven is a strong enough and secure enough creative person that he can say where he got the idea without diminishing himself.

Living in Hollywood and working on the internet, I am often exposed to people who try to come up with tricks for success. These tricks are the creative person’s version of get-rich-quick schemes and just as likely to fail. Some of these desperate tricksters come up with all these little rules about how the best way to succeed is to get inspiration from someone more innovative and deny where the inspiration comes from. Which is right up there with the notion that anyone who has ever done anything for mature audiences must be somehow crossing over and rising up if they do anything for a different distribution channel or that doing anything adult means one must be consigned to exclusively producing adult material.

Wes Craven’s oevre ably demonstrates the only two unmalleable requirements for creative success: Be really good at what you do and work at it.

A while back, we were chatting in the forums about horror movies and gore on film. It occurred to me that outspoken Blue Blood superstar hottie Jax, with her extensive body modifications, would have a very interesting and unique perspective on subjecting the human body to extremes. Definitely a topic which called for an in-depth interview with Jax!

Amelia G: What are some of your favorite horror movies or other media?

Jax: I grew up on the oldies like Nightmare on Elm Street, Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Halloween movies, I remember watching them with my dad when I was really young so I’ll always hold those as some of my favorites. I really, really like almost anything done by Takashi Mike.

Amelia G: What are some of your favorite real gore movies or other media?

Jax: My most favorite real gore are the Faces/Traces of Death series and the movie Cannibal Holocaust (thanks TOA for showing me that real gore movies are out there).

Amelia G: Do you find gore in horror movies scary?

Jax: Scary? Not really. Sometimes some things will make my toes curl, because I have an overactive imagination. But that’s because I’m thinking “Woah, what would that feel like?” or “Yeah, I remember when I did that, and it didn’t feel very pleasant.”

Amelia G: I think a lot of people would be freaked out by seeing someone hung off a hook or someone getting their tongue split or a hole punched out of someone’s flesh in a movie torture scene. Obviously, you have an intriguing and different perspective from the average person because you know what all those things would actually feel like. Do you think that your real life experiences make movie scenes more visceral for you or more ho hum or just more interesting?

Jax: I’d have to say more interesting mainly, but only because of other people’s perspectives. While I’ve actually felt what it was like to hang from hooks, punch holes in my ears, get my tongue split or any other sort of more extreme body modification, it’s interesting to see other people’s reaction to them on the TV. Like recently, my mom watched Strangeland, and was freaking out over some of the suspension scenes, knowing full well I have done multiple suspensions. The difference is she watched them on TV but wouldn’t look at the pictures of me doing them, haha. I think maybe if she saw pictures of me doing them, it would have become a little more realistic, I dunno.

However some scenes are more visceral for me. Seeing it and actually being able to relate to those feelings is almost odd in a way that sometimes those feelings will rush back to me. Almost as if I’m participating again.

Amelia G: Do you think the context of, for example, a consensual one hook suspension is so different from something forced on someone unwilling that the experiences are not really comparable? Does the manner in which something like that is done entirely change how an individual would experience it i.e. what aspects do you feel would make an experience like that more uplifting vs. more like torture?

Jax: Being forced and being willing I feel are two entirely different experiences. For example, when you willingly do a one hook suspension, it is because you want to experience the pain, the emotion and the overall sense of what is going on. I can’t imagine being forced to do a suspension. Your mind is just not in the right place to get the full aspect of what is about to happen. For anything to be an uplifting experience, you have to want to do it. You have to be curious, not repulsed, by the act in certain situations. I feel in these situations, torture is any physical or emotional pain that you are not willing to be consensual to, and is being forced upon you. Some people feel that suspensions, tattoos, piercings or any other body mod is performing torture and mutilation upon ones self. I completely disagree, because these are things I want to feel and experience as far as the mindset. In order for it to be uplifting, the number one thing (I feel) is you have to be comfortable.

Amelia G: Some people enjoy going to the gym and some people just like how working out makes them feel or look. To what extent have you enjoyed the process of getting each of your varied body modifications and to what extent was the ends of having them more enjoyable for you personally than the means of acquiring them?

Jax: If going to the gym and working out makes you feel or look great, then kudos to you. I respect your decision to do so, as I would hope those would respect my decisions for my body mods. The biggest thing I really enjoy about the process of getting new mods is the planning that goes into each one. While my piercings dont really have any sort of meaning other than I like the way they look, each and every one of my tattoos has meaning. And I have to say, through all the years the most enjoyable thing about having what I have is being able to look back and remember each and every detail about my life at the time I had them done. Almost like a picture album. Where I was, my thoughts on life, and my innermost feelings are things that could never be captured with a camera.

And I have to admit, the endorphin rush and the feeling of overcoming pain once its over is pretty attractive to me in itself regardless of the mod. No, I’ve never orgasmed while getting a body mod, the feelings of accomplishment and the love I have with the finished result is much more powerful.

It’s kind of funny that I love love love the aesthetic of the new Captivity movie, yet I’m kinda not cool with the subject matter. I’m not too comfortable with it being censored either, though.

I know people have been complaining, since before I was born, about violence in movies being okay, while sexuality is censored. But I have to say, why is it that if someone puts their cock in a beautiful woman’s mouth, the movie is probably going to get an X and thus limited distro and thus limited financing and production values? But dismember the same woman slowly and the discussion becomes R or NC-17? Is it really okay to broadcast horrors, the likes of which most people will never ever see in person, to seventeen-year-olds, but healthy sexuality, of a sort most people will experience, takes another year of maturing for audiences to be able to handle it? What kind of a society are we going to have when we show teenagers torture porn like Hostel before we let them see, if you can forgive me for invoking normalcy, normal sex?

Full disclosure: Obviously, you all can’t have missed the advertisements Captivity bought on a number sites I work on, including this one. And, yes, if you went to the premiere party at Los Angeles meat market Privilege, you probably spotted around half a dozen hotties you recognized from BlueBlood.com, along with various other contributors.

It bums me out, on a number of levels, that the premiere party was billed as ground-breakingly outrageous and nasty. This seems to show a simultaneous lack of respect for the performers and desire to profit from them. Although the cigarette smoke-stained off-white interior of Privilege generally plays host to more vanilla smutsters, Los Angeles has seen tattooed hotties doing BDSM once or twice before. In point of fact, the club is essentially a tent erected by where the Coconut Teazer nightclub used to stand. So that very location has probably been host to more than its share of tattooed hotties with fetish gear over the years. The most ground-breaking aspect was probably that it is unusual for a movie to not screen at its own premiere.

Anyway, both the MPAA, which rates movies, and a variety of watchdog groups have objected to Captivity’s presentation well before they started planning a premiere. After Dark Films pulled thirty of their billboards from Los Angeles and more than fourteen hundred taxi cab adverts, the creative for which featured the slogan “Capture, Confinement, Torture, Termination.” over very beautiful stylized photos of a very small portion of a scene involving a woman. I can’t emphasize enough how great the color scheme of those advertisements was. Meanwhile, the MPAA jerked the movie company around on when the film was even going to be rated. After Dark Films co-founder Courtney Solomon claims the MPAA rigmarole with Captivity is just about the MPAA maintaining their position of power. “They needed a whipping boy. They’re not about protecting parents or kids. They’re about keeping their power in Hollywood.” The upshot of this was that a schedule May 18 release date became a July 13 release date. While releasing a horror flick on Friday the 13th is always nifty, any organization which can keep audiences away from a product is scary. And not scary in an entertaining way, scary in a bad way.

A quick history lesson: The Motion Picture Association of America was founded in 1922 as a trade association. Although the initial industry concerns it dealt with had more to do with copyright and contract standardization, over the years, it has become almost synonymous with the ratings system it devised. Many industries choose to police themselves, partly out of decency, and partly out of a desire to take care of it internally before outsiders do it for them. So the MPAA ratings board determines whether a movie will receive wide release as a PG flick or the financial death knell of an NC-17. Representatives of the six major studios sit on the board. These studios includes Disney, Fox, Paramount, Sony, Universal, and Warner Brothers.

Now, the opening weekend gross for Captivity was only a bit over a million bucks, which is pretty terrible for a major studio release and brought the movie in at a ranking of #12 for domestic releases that weekend. In all fairness, the flicks Captivity was beaten out by were Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Transformers, Ratatouille, Live Free or Die Hard, License to Wed, 1408, Evan Almighty, Knocked Up, Sicko, Ocean’s Thirteen, and Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer. Had the movie been able to open as planned, if the MPAA had not hung them up, then it might have been able to do better against the movies opening that weekend. Although a $1.4 mill opening is lackluster for any theatrical release, especially a heavily advertised one, had Captivity opened May 18 with the same total, it would have ranked #8. Then again, maybe it would have gotten its ass kicked by Shrek and Spider-Man, just like everybody else.

Part of the difficulty I have parsing out my feelings on the brouhaha is that it is difficult to figure out whether an After Dark Films release counts as a major motion picture or a plucky little guy trying to make it. Captivity is “co-released” by Lionsgate, but Lionsgate leaves all the responsibility for potentially problematic promo on After Dark’s doorstep. I’m not sure what “co-releasing” means exactly, but Lionsgate has a market capitalization of one point three five billion dollars and an estimated four hundred full time employees. Which I would not categorize as small or independent. I think it is important to note that the distro on a partner-produced movie like Captivity is a microscopic portion of the business of a behemoth like Lionsgate, which is responsible for very enjoyable and successful projects such as the Academy-award-nominated The Cooler and innovative DVD packaging and distribution for projects ranging from cutting edge fare like Weeds to cult classics like King of New York. Then again, if you inflicted the Care Bears movie on your kids, that is partly Lionsgate’s responsibility too.

According to the New York Times, Courtney Solomon, who put himself on the map by optioning Dungeons & Dragons and parlaying that into a much-lambasted directorial turn, “persuaded the director of Captivity, Roland Joffé, the much-honored filmmaker behind The Mission and The Killing Fields, to undertake reshoots. These added explicit torture, including a so-called “milkshake” scene that involves body parts and a blender, to a picture that was largely psychological in its thrust when After Dark acquired the rights to it.” Both to the New York Times and in other media outlet, Solomon chortles about what a freakshow his premiere is going to be and how upset he hopes women’s groups get about his movie. The National Organization for Women said, on the record, that they were not going to protest to give him press.

So, having delved into the issues involved, here is my summary take on it. First, if After Dark Films is looking for a modern audience for their movies, it is a bit antiquated to act like BDSM and tattoos are outrageous fringe culture. I’m sick of this sort of marginalizing nonsense from people who would like to make a dollar off of my scene. Secondly, because of the major studio makeup of the MPAA, I feel it can’t really be objective. I like having ratings on things as a viewing guide, but I dislike the way the ratings system leads to unwarranted limitations on distribution and I particularly dislike the way the current rating system encourages violence against women in place of human sexuality. It will be a chilly day in Hellywood before I deliberately view torture porn like Captivity, but I don’t think a project like that should have its success determined by whether or not its producers can convince a half dozen really biased businesspeople that violence against women is appropriate viewing for teens. Thirdly, although I kind of liked the Captivity billboards, I was personally revolted by the Saw signage at the San Diego Comic Con and I think movie producers, and everyone really, should pay attention to what they put in an advertisement people will not be able to avoid. I do not want strangers telling me what I can see in my media. I deeply believe that that becomes a slippery slope to total destruction of the free speech rights granted to all Americans by the First Amendment, but I also do not want strangers forcing me, or forcing children, to see things they do not wish to see or should not see. This means that adverts, in public places, for potentially upsetting products, should be honest about what the products are, without ramming the product down the throats of the unwilling.

I admit that, although I loved Elisha Cuthbert’s performance and character in the surprisingly awesome The Girl Next Door, I loathed her Kim Bauer character she played on 24. I thought about kicking off this article with a joke about how I thought Kiefer Sutherland’s Jack Bauer should have just let her be kept captive and tortured. Heck, that was probably the inspiration for Captivity. For me to want to watch that, however, it would really have to be one of the dungeons on Fucking Machines, where the action is consensual and female pleasure might actually be involved too.