The Captives

I'm a horror/gore movie freak and this flick was so bad, I felt embarrassed for not only the "actors", but also the director and the poor sap of a producer who actually put his money up for this schlock.

From the title, you'd expect some great carnage, somewhat of a storyline and at LEAST some direction or dialog. Instead, you get what looks like a slightly more violent and sexual Three Stooges episode. At least I laugh at the Three Stooges. While watching this crap, I turned another TV on and started watching Howard Stern until something interesting happened.

Needless to say, I kept watching Stern.

Watching this "film" I realize that I could produce a film with three monkeys, 2 DV cameras, $50 dollars in loose change and a broken PC. This film is my inspiration to get into no-budget film making. Watch this movie if you dare, but be warned...there is a lot of nothing in here but a whole lot of talking and very little action. This makes "KaZaam" look like a Meryl Streep film.

I'm sure Germany didn't ban it due to sex or violence. Other countries need to take heed.

I like B-grade horror movies. This movie does not merit a "B". Nor "C". Nor "Q". See where I am going? I'd give more details about what precisely was bad about this, but my mind is blocking most of this steaming turd from my memory as a defensive measure. (I defer to the gentleman's review above.

Well put, sir!)

The people who made this movie took a page from Ed Wood in that this movie is not about the details. It's about a 'big picture' that never seems to materialize. It is an amateur Goth/S&M piece that was scripted entirely by phrases beginning with "...and then wouldn't be sooo cool if...". A lot of nothing happens. It's like waiting behind a convenience store waiting for a blind date to arrive would be like if said date never existed and was merely a prank on you by people who hate you a lot. After you realized your mistake, the pain and ridicule are already firmly in place.

This was the least enjoyable movie...ever.

NO SPOILERS.

I love horror movies, but this has got to be the poorest attempt to make one ever. Calling it "a movie" is also a stretch. This "random-clips-of-obviously-fake-and-tacky-violence-and-an-ugly- woman-trying-to-act-sexy-edited-poorly-together" is not worth watching.

Watching this is about as interesting watching as some random family's holiday pictures, and it has about the same quality you would expect when you send your ten year old son into the woods with your new vid-cam, and tell him to make a movie.

Terrible.

What an awful, awful, awful movie. I tried *REALLY* hard to find something worth while in this and came up empty. I did enjoy the ending of the movie immensely, but that was only because it meant my suffering was over.

The story (which is *completely* irrelevant to the actual movie) is that some guy rapes and kills a woman on his brother's property. The guy goes to jail and because his brother tried to help him cover up the act he goes in for accessory to murder. He then escapes, meets up with his girlfriend and then introduces her to the 'gifts' he has stored in the basement, which is just a couple of people that somehow wronged him at his trial. He intends to kill them and her, so she tries to escape, struggles with and then subsequently kills the brother.

She's now home alone with 3 people that incidentally also wronged her in the past, so it's payback time.

At this point the movie has finally reached the part that people watching this movie paid for. Problem is it took almost 40 minutes to get there, and a *LOT* of those 40 minutes were spent watching long stupid scenes of nothing shot like your dad would film something with his handycam while walking. The background noise during this was a bunch of annoying buzzes and shreeks. Guess even soundtracks cost a lot of money these days.

The acting... It's a stretch to even call what they are doing 'acting', but for argument's sake let's do so. It's terrible. There's a scene where one of the 'actors' actually laughs when he's clearly supposed to be in pain. My guess is these 'actors', if they were even slightly serious about their acting career, pretty much blew it by signing on for this movie. If they had an agent, he should be shot (or worse, be forced to watch this movie).

There's a whole bunch of nudity in the movie, and while the main subject isn't exactly ugly, she probably won't become Miss Universe anytime soon. I think she's also the most tattoo-covered girl I've seen on film ever. There's a pretty explicit up-close and personal masturbation scene with her too, but that's about it. When she then does a similar thing with one of her captives, there's a striking lack of close-ups of the act. If anything would've been considered shocking (which is probably what the movie was intended to do) *THAT* would've been it.

Oh yeah, to keep some sort of story going, every so often they cut to black and white segments of her moaning on about why who did what. Aside from the fact that absolutely nobody cares about the story, this monotonous monologue is about as interesting as listening to someone reading entries out of the phone book.

If you have any plans at all to go watch this, PLEASE DON'T! If you wanted to see it for the shock-value, watch either "I Spit On Your Grave (1978)" or the less sexual "Broken" video by Nine Inch Nails front man Trent Reznor. And if you wanted to just see the naked girl, rent a porno. I can guarantee you it'll be more interesting, have a better story, makeup, lighting, acting and BUDGET, and give you a lot more value for your dollar.

0 out of 10. Avoid at all cost.

A young man kills a young woman for no reason. The man's brother is jailed on charges that he was an accomplice, but soon escapes. Upon escaping, the seemingly innocent man kidnaps three victims and soon he ropes his girlfriend in on the plot. If this isn't bad enough, the situation quickly makes a downward spiral.

This film had some good aspects and many bad ones. Its strongest aspect was lead actress Emily Haack. Setting aside the fact she's nude in a fair amount of this film, she presents herself as a decent actress and a very strong character. I see no reason she cannot take this experience and somehow turn it into a career in some way. I was convinced she was a ruthless individual.

Also, the makers of this film were very bold and pulled no punches. Graphic nudity (both male and female), coprophagia, and extreme anal violence are not shied away from. I like my horror films to push the boundaries a little bit, and this one ignored them altogether, gladly skipping towards Gomorrah. Maybe it was too much, but I think they achieved what they were looking for.

But now the negative aspects. First, and most noticeable, this film is very low budget and the film quality shows this. I can excuse that -- the plot was decent, the acting fine and in some scenes the lower quality film actually made the movie more disturbing (a more realistic feel). So, I won't scold them for having low-grade equipment. What I will scold them for is the use of poor choices in shots. For no reason I can ascertain (besides plumping the movie), there is a large amount of footage of a cemetery. I don't really know why, and I frankly started dozing off at this point because it was so long and pointless.

I also take issue with the title. The idea here was to deceive people into thinking this film had some connection to the classic "I Spit on Your Grave". Now, there is a line that seems to imply the main character is the daughter of the woman from this other film. And the themes are very loosely the same (a woman getting revenge on men). But there is no firm connection and the reason this title was chosen was for the video store customer to think they were getting a sequel. This was deceptive and dishonest.

My last major complaint is that this plot makes no real sense. Not even a little bit. A woman is killed in the beginning for no reason. A prison escapee finds time to kidnap people to torture them, for no reason (because they wronged his girlfriend?). The same man goes from good to very evil without explanation. Likewise, the female lead (Haack) turns fro ma normal person to someone who is overly cruel and sadistic, for no reason at all, and against people who for the most part were only marginally mean to her (a neighbor offering drugs for sex is wrong, but by no means worth getting tortured for).

Don't let this title fool you, or the claims that the film is incredibly shocking. Yes, some scenes were shocking, but the vast majority of the film is dull and makes you want to take a nap. If you see this in the video store or on Netflix, just keep browsing. Or rent it, and we can sit around and vent about it for hours. You have been warned.