As horror films become ever more violent and gruesome, the PR reps whose job it is to get us to the cinema to watch people being tortured have developed an almost amusing strategy. Rather than shying away from controversy and claiming the high ground, studios and promoters do whatever they can think of to upset a few easily offended people and use the supposed outrage to promote the gorefest as some sort of oddly subversive experience. In fact, scandal has become such a reliable predictor of financial success that in Hollywood, “controversy is cultivated more often than it occurs naturally.”