10 Torture-Obsessed Horror Movies That Shaped Early 2000's Horror (2025)

Much like the Final Girls it champions, horror is a genre that simply won't be kept down. Not only are there a huge number of subgenres for fans to delve into, but many horror franchises have lore and chronology as complex and deep as some fantasy novels. The desire within horror audiences and filmmakers to see sequels, reboots, prequels, retcons and remakes positions horror uniquely in the film world.

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Trends are cyclical. This is as true of film as it is of fashion, music or any other art form. While filmmakers push boundaries with technology, storytelling and as many nasty, gory little tricks as they can, there is no denying that audiences and creatives return to the cemetery again and again to revive the dead; whether it be a long-abandoned subgenre or a since-forgotten franchise, there is always room for resurrection in horror.

10 'Wrong Turn' (2003)

When a group of friends on a road trip crashes their car in the remote wilderness of West Virginia, they quickly learn that they aren't alone, and they aren't safe. The friends are pursued and hunted by a group of bloodthirsty mountain people, who according to the film's opening credits, are deeply inbred and suffer from physical differences as a result.

If The Texas Chain Saw Massacre is horror fine-dining, Wrong Turn is a drive-through burger. The film's attempt to reinvent the notion of a cunning and inbred family of villains hiding in the remote reaches of The United States, while not necessarily unsuccessful, certainly isn't a home run. But, it is indicative of how deeply horror properties love to borrow from one another.

9 'Saw' (2004)

A photographer (Leigh Whannell) and an oncologist (Cary Elwes) wake up in a dirty bathroom with chains on their ankles and a body in the center of the room. This humble bathroom beginning would ultimately launch one of the most iconic horror franchises of the 21st century.

Saw is in many ways 'the little movie that could'. It reinvigorated audience interest in torture-filled horror films and launched the careers of James Wan and ‎Leigh Whannell. After its release in 2004, there was a Saw movie every year until 2010, and two more since then. Exploitation films and gory shockers have always existed, but Saw certainly changed the game. Rather than torture and pain being results of the story, Saw created a trend where torture was the story.

8 'Wolf Creek' (2005)

A group of young backpackers are exploring the beautiful but desolate eternity of the Australian Outback. During their travels, they run into Mick (John Jarratt) a charismatic but rough-around-the-edges local who's a bit too helpful. Loosely based on the crimes of Australian serial killer Ivan Milat, Wolf Creek jumped on the torture train of the time.

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The film gave audiences an iconic 21st-century villain with Mick and showed the world how Australian filmmakers crafted a horror story. Slow-burning, subdued, and embracing realism with its storytelling and set-pieces, Wolf Creek is emblematic of the gritty, grounded and anti-Hollywood approach that was typical of Australian cinema at the time.

7 'Hostel' (2005)

By the mid-2000s, torture as a subgenre had a stranglehold on horror storytelling, and it seemed as though there were no longer limits on what a director could show on screen. Enter, Eli Roth with Hostel. The film follows a group of friends traveling around Slovakia who hear tell of a local hostel filled with beautiful women and unforgettable experiences. The hostel, while certainly unforgettable, is not what they expected. It is actually a front for a secretive business in which wealthy patrons can pay to torture and murder kidnapped tourists.

Saw walked so Hostel could run. Unfortunately, it didn't run towards character development, thoughtful storytelling, or successful performances. It instead ran towards depravity, violence for the sake of violence, and an obsession with one-upmanship. The goal of Hostel, and with many films in the torture subgenre, is simply to be more disgusting and edgier than whatever has come before.

6 'The Hills Have Eyes' (2006)

A family on a road trip across the Southwest of The United States decides to take a shortcut through the desert. When their car breaks down in the isolated wasteland they've been trekking through, they are set upon by a group of desert-dwelling cannibals.

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The Hills Have Eyes is a remake of the 1977 film of the same name from iconic horror director Wes Craven. The film demonstrates that while trends change, and appetites grow darker, there will always be a thirst to return to the well and pull up a decades-old classic for re-examination and re-interpretation.

5 'Martyrs' (2008)

Two women meet and bond over their experiences of childhood abuse. They decide that to relieve their trauma they have to seek revenge against those who wronged them. Although the set-up sounds like a stock-standard inciting incident for a film that is aiming to get gross and edgy, Martyrs represents a more thoughtful approach to the subgenre of torture.

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The film explores whether one's suffering can be used to transcend the experience of suffering altogether. While there is a more reflective and sophisticated vein that runs through Martyrs, that vein is just as blood-filled and gory as many other torture films of the time. Martyrs pulls no punches with its gore, its guts, or its themes.

4 'The Midnight Meat Train' (2008)

Based on a short story from horror legend and Hellraiser creator Clive Barker, The Midnight Meat Train follows down-and-out photographer Leon (Bradley Cooper) who rides the subway at night hoping to stumble upon some inspiration for his work. What he finds instead is a mysterious butcher (Vinnie Jones) who is part of a secretive operation that uses the nighttime subways as a means to acquire human meat.

No longer content with simply torture and suffering, many torture-focused films of the late-2000s were also aiming to actually say something or tell a story that went beyond the edgelord style of filmmakers like Eli Roth. The Midnight Meat Train certainly isn't a cinematic masterpiece, but its exploration of urban decay and artistic obsession certainly warrant some attention.

3 'The Collector' (2009)

An ex-con drowning in debt (Josh Stewart) breaks into the house of his wealthy boss to steal some valuables and settle his scores. As luck would have it, he isn't the only person breaking in tonight. The house has already been booby-trapped by a conniving and dangerous serial killer who begins a night-long game of cat and mouse.

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The Collector is a tight and tidy bottle movie that manages to crank the tension up high, despite the limited cast and budget. Part heist film, part survival thriller and part torture-fest, The Collector's plot works much harder to draw viewers in than many of the torture films that came before which were simply satisfied with gore, gore and gore.

2 'The Loved Ones' (2009)

Brent (Xavier Samuel) is a troubled and depressed teenager struggling with the consequences of a family tragedy. Lola (Robin McLeavy) is a bubbly and unusual classmate of Brent's who asks him to attend the school dance with her. When Brent says no, Lola and her dad (John Brumpton) kidnap him and stage their own school dance at their home.

The Loved Ones is visceral, devastating and absurd all at once. The film manages to gracefully tap-dance between a variety of wildly disparate tones and explores how deeply one family's toxicity can poison and traumatize an entire community.

1 'I Spit on Your Grave' (2010)

After being viciously assaulted and left for dead, Jennifer (Sarah Butler) manages to survive and begins a quest for revenge. I Spit on Your Grave is a remake of the highly controversial 1978 film of the same name (sometimes also known as Day of the Woman). I Spit on Your Grave and its remake symbolize how far the torture and exploitation subgenres have come, and how in some ways, they have traveled all the way back to where they started.

When the 1978 version was released, it was widely criticized for its graphic and arguably unnecessary depictions of sexual violence. Additionally, the marketing for the film sexualized the protagonist, drawing uncomfortable correlations between the sex appeal of women, and their victimization through sexual violence. What was "edgy", tasteless and lacking in depth in the 70s, was "edgy" tasteless and lacking depth in 2010 too. The remake of this film shows just similar derivative and immature horror can be when it plays into its basest desires and fails to grow beyond its roots.

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