Forget the next millennium. Let’s reflect for a moment on how we have come to this moment in our cultural history when even a tacky gore-movie rag might use the term iconographic to describe this one-man show that opened last weekend at multiplexes across the country. Snider plays a twisted sister, indeed, a predatory sadomasochist who finds his victims in Internet chat rooms. He preys particularly on teenagers who, faced with the temporary but dire crises of their age, are vulnerable to his smooth-talking empathy and invitation to adventure. He arranges meetings, then kidnaps and imprisons them in the basement of his dilapidated house where he tortures them.

Other than a cursory nod toward dramatic development in including among the victims the daughter of the small town’s chief detective, there is virtually no story line. Snider’s dialogue is almost a parody of banality, and director John Pieplow’s filmic sense is crude and uninvolving. But for the only discernible purposes of this product, these considerations don’t matter. Who cares if Strangeland merely marks time, palpably holding its breath, between the excruciating scenes of sadistic torture? These extremely graphic and loathsome scenes are precisely why it was made and that’s what it’s selling, and the primary question we may need to consider is Who is going to see this stuff? (That the film is rated “R,” meaning that anyone 16 or younger must be accompanied by a parent or adult guardian, somehow offers little comfort.)

Those viewers who are passionate about First Amendment rights and take the threat of arts censorship seriously would recognize in Strangeland a casebook example of how our popular culture (sic) fuels the flames for censorship proponents. Do we have films that rile the far right because of their compelling treatment of serious social issues? Almost never. Do we have films that seriously examine crucial themes in government, public policy, international relations, or technology? No. Do we even have films with searching, intelligent scripts and richly conceived roles for good actors to bring to life that help us confront the fundamentals of what it means to be human? Rarely. Thus, the defense of intellectual, spiritual and artistic freedom of expression is debased and we find ourselves fighting culture wars over a movie in which the most consciously seductive camera shots are of young people (mostly female) screaming and pleading helplessly, writhing in chains, being tortured – pierced with spikes, tugged with meat hooks, hanging in metal frames with their flesh cats-cradled with taut cords and needles. Or, rather, one side of the culture wars stays home, while the other relishes yet another prime opportunity to rattle its moral broadsword, confuse the issues, and say See? We told you so. The print ad campaign features the face of a girl with her mouth sewn together with black catgut, over the tag line “Wanna come to a party?”