Captivity Review
Posted by Ryan Latimer on 07.17.2007
Note to self: change name or choose better films
Captivity is cinematic punishment. If in the event society decides to implement physical damnation to its citizens for not having seen classics such as The Godfather or Raging Bull, this would be it. Here is a movie so lazy and brainless it literally draws pictures to help explain plotlines.
Elisha Cuthbert stars as Jennifer, an up-and-coming cover girl perhaps humorously modeled after media darling Paris Hilton, little white handheld puppy and all, minus the annoying smirk. She awakens one night to find herself held captive in a Dark Place, a plot element now so tired and worn it could only be one-uped with the element of recordable cameras, one Captivity provides with a smile. Jennifer is tortured and mentally toyed with - all caught on camera of course - almost immediately by an unidentified man with a big black overcoat, an obvious fan of the Jigsaw Killer of the Saw franchise. It takes a particularly awful horror film to make Saw feel like Silence of the Lambs, or worse yet, make me crave a fourth installment of either film.
The movie has no direction or imagination; it plays less like a horror flick and more like a pointless exercise in the macabre, except it’s not very good at that either. The film is shameless. There has been recent controversy in terms of content with films such as Eli Roth’s Hostel and Rob Zombie’s The Devil’s Rejects, some by your truly, but if anything those films at the very least know where they are going or what they are doing. They have characters. A story outline. Coherence. Captivity is more a test of patience - can you watch it through? If you can, will you care to stay long enough to discover the plot twist? Twenty minutes into the film, Jennifer is fed ground up body parts through a funnel by her captor. Later, she is teased with boiling acid to her face and thrown into a pit of sand. Even later she discovers another captive located next to her room, a man whose name I can’t remember and don’t care to, and eventually the story unfolds, checking off nearly every bad horror cliché this side of Friday the 13th, a film Captivity only wishes it could be as groundbreaking as. Unfortunately for this film, the two characters have sex a day after meeting, putting it more in line with Prison Sluts than Freddy Kruger.
I cannot say much without giving vital information away, but I almost want to if it helps keep anymore potential viewers from theaters. I do, however, have a few questions, some of which almost literally begs to be asked. During one scene in which a portion of the story is explained, a home video is shown to the captives of two young boys murdering an older woman. Who was filming it? Here‘s another: if the bad guy‘s true motive is what is explained herein, why would he or she feed the prisoner a blood cocktail? How many times will the captor drug Jennifer to sleep before the audience follows suit? Perhaps the most important question: who gave this film financing? Captivity has such little respect for its audience that it fails to interpret itself without incorporating logic, and even when it does it treats its viewers like idiots, a mass of simpletons who only pay currency to witness bloodshed. One man gets shot in the crotch point blank with a shotgun and somehow manages to get up and continue fighting. Any self-respecting male walking this planet couldn’t possibly watch Captivity with either a smile or a sense of understanding that any of what transpires could possibly happen to them. If Captivity was going for the outrageous or unintentional humor, ten points.
After Dark Films has a long way to go to establish any sort of credibility in the horror market. The company rose to a modest level of fame with their straight-to-DVD horror series 8 Films to Die For, but based on what I’ve seen so far (I have yet to see them all) they are barely worthy to be injured from. Their prior theater release The Abandoned was mediocre at best and did little to create a buzz for itself, with Skinwalkers, their next project set for a wide release July 27, a complete toss up if Captivity is any indication whatsoever of a quality seal. What is for sure is that Eli Roth and Rob Zombie have nothing to worry about career-wise for the near future. As for Elisha Cuthbert, if Captivity is any testament to what constitutes a suitable project for her, my advice would be to spend more time with one or both of those men.
There is a sequence in Captivity in which Jennifer is asked what hell would be like for her. This question is never directly answered, but it did serve to add more clarity to the question of my own personal hell. The details are sketchy, but it somehow involves being locked captive inside a movie theater, forced to watch Captivity on a loop. Being fed ground up body parts couldn’t possibly make the situation more painful.
The 411: Steer clear, even horror buffs. If you feel the need for blood, rent Hostel. For skin, the Internet. For Elisha Cuthbert's skin, The Girl Next Door. Warning: film will still suck.
