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I personally think that "torture porn" is the perfect name for this ever expanding genre of movies. Both terms are being used in a more generalized fashion and together forming an instant mental image that perfectly suits the films.
Torture: Not necessarily the act of torture. Just violence. Brutal and in your face. No punches being held at all. More than likely physical violence, but could also mean psychological violence on an extreme level.
Porn: Not necessarily sexual and in many instances, not sexual at all. Just scene after scene strung together by a typically almost non-existent plotline just like your typical XXX porn movie. I don't feel the use of "porn" here has any base in sexual metaphors. It's about the non-stop scenes of a particular type.
So together you have a descriptor for a movie that focuses around brutal violence and not much else. Violence for violence's sake and if there happens to be a bit of a story thrown in it's probably just there to make you not feel quite so guilty about watching an hour and a half of brutal violence.
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As for the grouping of Hostel, Martyrs, Men Behind the Sun, and Salo I have to agree, they are radically different movies that really don't have much in common with each other other than the levels of violence, but they could all come under the umbrella of "torture porn" I guess. Hostel and Martyrs are in my mind, quintessential torture porn. Both have the weakest of plots with no real meaning behind them other than an excuse to string scenes of violence together. Men Behind the Sun, while the plot is quite weak is at least very loosely being somewhat documentary in nature. It is a chronicle of what really happened so it dispenses with much of a fabricated plot. Salo is the only one of the four that had an impact on me. I thought about it for days afterward. The ideas of the perceived worth of a human's life and how power can corrupt are quite powerful. Yes, it's a disturbing film to say the least, but I honestly don't think it deserves to be grouped with the others. It actually has meaning and purpose beyond scenes of violence and degradation..
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