I'm really disturbed by the idea that "add torture" is a formula for "pleasing the audience". That gets into the chicken-and-egg question of where culture comes from. Granted, if you ignore the either-or question and just accept that both the chicken and the egg are causative...
It makes me think of something I recently read:
http://borderhouseblog.com/?p=11663
No torture in this one, but... well.