WithChris Rock unleashing a newSawmovielater this year, EW looks back at the disturbing history of big-screen torture porn.

2004

In October, Lionsgate releasesSaw.

Elwes' character eventually hacks off his own foot in an attempt to escape.

“I despised this movie.”

I think the film got that label from the sequels as they got more and more gory."

Australian filmmaker Greg McLean’sWolf Creekis another brutal serial killer tale, about an outback-based murderer played by John Jarratt.

“What that does though is it immediately discredits the film.

I think it’s more reflective of the critic than the film.

The gore blinds them to any intelligence that goes into making the film.

The movie is, somewhat inexplicably, directed by Roland Joffe, whose credits includeThe Killing FieldsandThe Mission.

“Some character or other is taken prisoner by some often faceless, often-motiveless villain.

These are its spawn.

“Austin Chroniclecritic Marc Savlov is equally dismissive.

“Captivityis the kind of film that gives torture porn a bad name,“he writes.

Hell yeah it is, and not in a good way, either.”

2008

Director Pascal Laugier’s instantly notoriousMartyrsis released in theaters May 1.

“Torture is not the point ofMartyrs,” LaugiertellsShockTillYouDropwriter Ryan Turek.

“The film deals with human pain, the meaning of it, which is something completely different.

The expression ‘torture porn’ is a very recent one.

And it’s almost already gone.

How did Six get the idea for the film?

It would be a really good punishment for him,'“the director tells EW.

“Then I thought, ‘That’s a cool idea for a film.'”

Six describes his film as “100 percent medically accurate.”

“I wanted a real operation report,” he says.

“So I went to a Dutch surgeon.

He said, ‘No, no, that’s against my medical oath.’

But he’s a movie lover, so after a while he made a very detailed operation report.

A surgeon could actually make in a hospital a human centipede.

That’s what fascinates me.

And makes audiences feel more horrified by the idea.”

“As in torture.

As in… mutilation as marital catharsis.

The trouble is, it’s all too exhibitionistic to ring true.

Directed and co-written by Sran Spasojevic, the movie depicts the rape of a newborn baby.

In the U.K., the British Board of Film Classification demands 49 cuts be made to the film.

The seventhSawmovie,Saw 3D, opens at No.

TheSawfranchise is put on ice until 2017’sJigsaw.

The same month,The Human Centipedeis parodied in the season premiere ofSouth Park.

I do that myself.

I like that very much.

You’re scared of it, and at the same time, it’s very funny.”

In EW, Gleiberman gives the film two thumbs up.