I'll try to elaborate. I, too, love well-done, thoughtful film-making, and do consider some of the best films art as well. Some of the best, edge-of-your-seat horror films (Pycho, Alien, even Blair Witch, I think) fall into this category. The directors of these films don't depend on the all-to-easy blood and gore ploy to make their films scary and suspenseful, instead, they use their brains to create scenes that generate suspense w/o all the gore, etc. When I said that it's a sad commentary about our society that Hostel is the #1 movie in U.S. it's because I think most people who see this film are not motivated to see it because they think they'll be seeing "art." I'm thinking they have, well, more basic motivations; they want to see blood and guts. And don't we see enough horror and misery in the newspaper and on the evening news every day? Do we need an extra dosage with movies like this? I just think it's gotten to the point where people are getting so conditioned to accept brutality as a part of life, and I think it's sad. Hope that clears things up a bit (sorry I'm a bit long-winded).