You may have seen the commercials for the new film “Hostel.” You know the ones – Quentin Tarantino’s name brandished in large letters, cautionary tales of paramedics being called to early screenings and that one lasting image of a toe being cut off. It’s enough to make this little piggy run all the way home – or at least in the opposite direction.

The film, written and directed by Eli Roth, the same guy who gave us “Cabin Fever” and “Fear Dot Com,” came in No. 1 in this weekend’s box office, proving once again, if it bleeds, it sells.

“Hostel” joins its contemporaries, “Saw” and “Saw II” in particular, in an increasingly popular genre of horror flicks that goes beyond graphic. These aren’t supposed to really make you think; they’re not even designed to keep you at the edge of your seat – unless you’re doubled-over in disgust. It’s a 90-minute conglomerate of blood, guts and gore that cuts through (pardon the pun) all the tension and gives viewers a chance to see torture at its most elaborate.

There once was a time when horror films could just take an idea and scare the living hell out of us. It wasn’t up to make-up artists and CGI effects (looking back, some of the special effects from the days of yore inspire chuckles before chills), these films instead depended on suspense and the truly terrifying depths of the human imagination.

Look over your classic horror films: “Jaws,” “Carrie,” “The Exorcist,” “Rosemary’s Baby,” “Invasion of the Body Snatchers.” In “Jaws,” the truly terrifying moments weren’t when the great white was tearing through flesh, but rather when all we saw was a dorsal fin and the chilling “dun dun … dun dun” as it glided through the water. It wasn’t what we were seeing, but what we weren’t seeing that gave us goosebumps.

Most horror movie aficionados are familiar with that uneasy feeling in the stomach you get when waiting to see what kind of carnage Freddy Krueger or Michael Myers had unleashed. As the camera slowly pans and the orchestra begins to swell, our hearts race faster than when the bodies are revealed.

Even more modern films, like “Scream,” had their moments of sheer suspense at its finest. Many moviegoers our age can recall the opening scene, as a frantic Drew Barrymore encounters the most terrifying telemarketer ever to grace the silver screen. (Come on, how many times did you prank call your friends and ask them their favorite scary movie?) Thanks to that opening, the image of Jiffy Pop burning on the stove alone still gives me the creeps – even moreso than seeing the body dangling from the trees.

It’s moments like this in horror films that stick in the psyche of audiences. It’s those suspenseful scenes that replay in your head when you go home from the theater and sleep with the lights on. And, as you pace the halls of your abode and peer around doorways, you almost can hear the orchestral score coming to a ferverent crescendo.

Seeing dead bodies in films obviously causes a reaction, usually of disgust (at least in most mentally-sound people). But what takes away from the scare is once you see that image of a mangled corpse or gaping wound painted on whichever big-breasted actress or beefy frat boy, you breathe a sigh of relief because it’s not you. But when you start to remember those moments before the camera creeps around the door while the music is still gaining tension, you edit in your own body, blood, guts and all, as the final shot. And that’s what keeps us up at night.

If it’s pure gore you’re looking for, plop down the 10 bucks for “Hostel.” But if you want a real scare, when you’re through counting your toes, swing by the local Hollywood Video and rent yourself a classic.

– Bobby Hankinson can be reached at [email protected]