Jack Ketchum's Evil

I found this film in a list of best torture films. I love saw and hostel and was hoping for this kind of thing. It's a slow burner at first, it sets the scene for over half an hour and I began thinking am I watching the right film? But when it starts it REALLY starts. I could say a lot about this film, like how the main guy could have done a lot more to help the situation. But I won't say much because I want you to watch it knowing and expecting nothing like I did. What I will say though, is I actually cried at this film. And I don't think I've ever done that in a horror film before. Enjoy!

This had the feel of a made for TV movie from the 1980's. It starts slowly but you gradually get a sense of dread at what will happen next. Unfortunately even if you are prepared for what will happen it is still pretty shocking.

The acting is generally pretty low rate though the two main young actors Blythe Auffarth as Meg and Daniel Manche as David are both excellent.

This is not a film to enjoy unless you are some kind of sick sadist. It is grim and undeniably hard to watch and the fact it is based on a true story makes it even more shocking and it's a sad fact that things like this went on and still go on.

You may ask why make a film like this. Well in my mind if these things are swept under the carpet then nothing changes. If films like this make even one person speak up about the abuse they have suffered in silence then that's a good thing.

I didn't enjoy watching the film but it is well done and has an important message that you should never keep quiet when you know something is wrong.

A bum is run over by a car. Some guy in a business suit gives him CPR for some reason and save his life somehow. The suit then tells us about pain and that nothing has been right in his life since the summer of '58. He pulls some painting out of an envelope.

Now we're in 1958 when this guy, named David of course, was a kid. While at the river he runs into some older girl. They get along well. She tells him she lives with her aunt, Ruth, and sister, Susan, next door to him, after her parent died in a car accident.

This was a time when doors were kept unlocked and kids just showed up in your living room. We meet some of the other teen and preteen kids in the neighborhood, mostly mean guys who don't treat girls well. They also play mean games. David and the girl, Meg, run into each other a couple more times and they start liking each other, even though David seems several years younger. David starts visiting Meg at Ruth's place. There are always a bunch of kids there. Ruth is single, and for some reason she offers these kids beer and cigarettes. She gives moralizing speeches aimed to belittle Meg and Susan. Susan is disabled, wears knee braces, and uses crutches, but that doesn't stop Ruth from violently disciplining her in front of the kids.

One day Meg gives David a painting--the same painting from the intro. When Ruth finds out she interprets it as proof that Meg is a slut. After more abuse eventually Meg is bound in some torture position in the basement while Ruth and all the kids figure out how to make her suffer. They take her clothes off, start cutting her, burning her, eventually raping her. And things go downhill from there, while no one dares say a word and everyone except David participates enthusiastically.

And that's what this movie is about--human inhumanity and cruelty--for the sake of cruelty. It's never clear what Ruth gains from all this, what her motivation is. Perhaps it's just the sorry need to feel superior and doing something because it can be done. I guess that's the common denominator in all torture whether in the 50s or today, allegedly for the sake of "security." More than horror torture porn, this is rather drama torture porn, it's not particularly explicit or visually gruesome. The movie is fairly slow and oddly enough the filmmakers don't bother to establish the character of Meg enough, which is why we can't really feel for her all that much until the very end.

This is a very harrowing movie based on a true story from 1958 of an adopted teenage girl who is kept tied-up in a basement and horribly physically and sexually abused by her male cousins and other neighborhood kids, all under the orchestration of her very insane woman-hating aunt.

This movie is definitely hard to watch (it prompted at least one walk-out at the midnight film festival showing I attended), but it's nowhere as graphic as it COULD be given the subject matter, and it doesn't revel in the abuse and degradation of the girl like many of these kind of movies tend to (think "I Spit on Your Grave" and some of the recent so-called "torture porn."). It also has a strong moral center in the form of the pubescent boy next door who befriends the girl and becomes increasing disturbed by what is happening to her, but is unable to tell the authorities or even his clueless parents out of loyalty to his friends. This kind of helpless but moral hero is actually a lot more realistic than the usual avenging Rambo type in typical Hollywood movies (which ought to be called "revenge porn", and are even more dangerous than legitimate "torture porn" because they create the kind of dangerous fantasies that lead entire countries to blunder into places like Vietnam or Iraq). In that respect, it kind of reminded me of one of my favorite all-time movies, "River's Edge", which is also very disturbing, but ultimately very morally uplifting in a human (rather than revenge fantasy) way.

The acting by all involved is excellent and the directing more than adequate. Some may fault the movie for not having an obvious "message", but SFW. Don't see this if you're easily offended, but I would recommend it to anyone willing to give it a chance.

I think this is the most disturbing film I've ever seen. I'm a horror film buff and thought I had seen it all, from indie chillers to Asian horror. But never has a film scraped my core like this one. I wouldn't call it "entertaining". But I guess I felt like I had to see it through. Most of the direct abuse is implied and described, which is a method that only adds to the horrifying emotions that result. I believe that the liberties taken in movies when dealing with true crime almost force people to feel what they should be feeling upon learning about such events. It's unfortunate that people skim the news with little emotion. Production, writing, acting and directing are superb in making this story real. Knowing that such an event really took place made it hurt so much more. I actually took an Alka-Seltzer after watching. Please don't let the kids watch.