Director: Lou Simon
Year: 2018
Country: USA
Alternate Titles: N/A
Genre: Torture Slasher
Plot:
After being kidnapped and held hostage, a man is tortured by a former military officer to get a confession out of him regarding a rape incident she held against him but was never convicted of, and the more they try to get the confession out of him the more the changing situation warps their mission.
Review:
This was a pretty solid variation on this particular genre of feature. The initial setup of what’s going on, setting up the entire scenario around a revenge-based series of interactions and beatings designed to beat a confession out of the supposed guilty party responsible for a debilitating rape prior to the film starting, manages to set this one up rather well. It establishes the supposedly noble or skeevy actions of all involved rather quickly, generating enough sympathy or outrage for their actions that sets this up for what goes on as the various tortures and questionable tactics being utilized to try to get the proper confession out of him. This brings about a solid series of revelations and twists about what’s going on as the story keeps changing making everything seem all the more bewildering the longer it goes on as the psychological mind-games being employed are just as impactful as the brutality in the tactics being used to get to the bottom of what happened. This allows for a solid series of somewhat graphic attacks that are part of the attacks, making for the positive points here.
There are some minor drawbacks on display with this one. One of the biggest issues is the usual standard of flaws that come about with the film relying on such a flimsy story to set everything in motion. Since the initial incident regarding what happened to the girl is so shoddily explained and never really given an in-depth explanation that spells out all the details so that the torture feels warranted, it comes off with a sense of just a demented individual doing something for the sake of the girl. The interactions that take place here regarding the victim being tortured for what went down are hackneyed and quite flimsy, and while it’s understandable given the series of revelations that come about that question whether or not these events actually happened but it still forms such a highly conflicting setup that renders the interrogation methods as being far more outside the realm of what her ever-changing claims make them out to be. Any sense of realism is taken away by what happens throughout here but this does bring about a problematic entry point being so farfetched and flimsy from the very beginning, but otherwise, it’s not that bad of a feature.
Overview: ***/5
A rather solid genre effort that has some mild issues, this one comes off really well in most regards with only a few missteps to bring it down as a decent entry in this particular style. Those who are fans of this particular approach or are fans of the creative crew will have the most to like with this one while those turned off by the flaws should heed caution here.
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