I was actually thinking about this very thing just this last week.

I agree with Onix that I doubt any of us are going to be able to say WHY we like these things, but I can tell you WHAT I like and list experiences.

It's actually a very long chain of fantasies that changed and evolved over nearly my whole life. I'm not actually sure I have the energy to detail everything here, nor do I bet most of you have the patience for what could easily be many pages.

I'll try to be brief. Many details will be lost:

From age... 3-5? I used to think about sitting with a girl and we'd eat each other to the bone, then regrow it all and do it again.

Between 5 and 7 I developed a huge fetish for piss and would masturbate with/in it.

Age... 10ish? I'd imagine cutting women to pieces, keeping them on display, fucking/eating them when I pleased.

Guro fantasies seemed to just be forgotten between ages 13 and 20. I explored desires for piss, cumshots, gangbangs, and much much more.

Suddenly, out of nowhere, I'm browsing a weird image gallery and a guro pic of a girl getting her guts pulled out while being fucked makes me jump out of my seat and shutdown the browser. For the next several days I'm unable to shake the image from my mind while at work and can't help but go back for a better look. Over the next several weeks I start to slowly remember my old guro fantasies and everything develops further.

I find that I have a big thing for beheadings, dismemberment, and fucking a woman through that last moment of awareness and life. Willingness, and eagerness are a big deal for me.

I get married. I tell my wife about guro. We explore BDSM together. We roleplay. My fantasies evolve further to include some degradation, domination, and free use.

OK NewGuy. Is that a good answer?

I haven't heard about that speculation regarding gore/death fantasies being on the rise, but it wouldn't surprise me.

I'm also going to have to agree with Anon about the soullessness of movie gore. It's not sexy or entertaining to me. Mortal Kombat used to be funny, but the novelty wore off at some point and I don't much care for the new games. I still play Doom from time to time and that sound of splattering and the chunky animations are very satisfying, just not sexually.