Breeder

I'm surprised, and also a bit upset, to notice that so many people gave a ridiculously low rating to "Breeder" and wrote incredibly dumb things in their reviews. This certainly isn't the greatest genre effort ever made, but - come on folks - at least this is REAL horror! Like rarely seen in recent years, "Breeder" features shocking images, loathsome villainous characters, extreme gore, and nasty scenery. I don't use this sentence very often, but this movie is NOT for the squeamish or the faint of heart!

The plot isn't exactly original, since in the fifties and sixties already, there were also horror flicks in which crazed scientists attempted to manipulate the natural ageing process by abducting young woman and performing nauseating experiments on them. But it's certainly better than the series of senseless torture-porn movies of recent years and, moreover, "Breeder" holds a truly disturbing and appalling twist in store. You might want to look away when the heroine opens a certain barrel in the final act of the film.

As for the often-read criticism that the women in this film are stupid, I disagree. They certainly aren't dumber or more naïve than in most films, and the lead heroine - Mia - is a strong and likeable character. The torture sequences are sadist and gratuitous? Perhaps, but certainly not any more or less than in the average "Saw" or "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" installment, and "Breeder" at least provides a bit more content and a morbidly tense atmosphere. Most impressive are the villains. Signe Egholm Olsen is insanely hateful as the relentless female scientist, and particularly Morten Holst catapulted himself straight in the top five of most evil cinematic psychopaths ever with his aptly nicknamed character The Dog. He kidnaps and guards the women, but he isn't in for the money or the scientific value. He's the right man for the job simply because he's a sick misogynic.

Of course, I'll be the first to admit "Breeder" also contains multiple shortcomings. The Thomas-character is weak and implausible, and considering the number of women gone missing, it's incredibly unlikely there isn't a massive police hunt going on. Especially in a country like Denmark. Still, every movie has defaults, but not nearly every movie can genuinely shock and petrify. "Breeder" does, hence I'm calling out to the real genre fanatics to seek this one out.

I can't understand all the very bad reviews. This is pretty decent compared to some of the awful stuff I've watched during lockdown boredom! The female lead is easy on the eye.

The first 1/3 kept us interested, but then it became quite boring and just went downhill from there. The ending was insanely stupid. I did not find the acting as bad as some claim, though. They should have made it at least 10 minutes shorter, also.

It seems to have been inspired by ISLAND OF DR MOREAU, same scheme, but in a more modern way. Good directing and suspense too, adequate atmosphere, oppressive, stressful but unfortunately not surprising at the end. Old school cinema, I would say, though there were batches of horror movies of more or less this kind since several decades. Not a bad film, worth watching. Dario Argento or David Cronenberg would have liked it, I guess.

Attempting to investigate a news story, a woman looking into an experimental drug company's latest line of products is taken hostage and captured along with numerous other women and repeatedly tortured for the delight of the owners of the company, forcing her to fight back to survive.

Overall, there's just very little to say about this one. Among the few bright spots featured is from the cruelty and barbaric treatment forced upon the lead throughout the running time here. The treatment inflicted at the facility, with their dark experiments and malicious mistreatment that purports to tell a message about the elite willing to go through the process of acquiring the treatment through the extreme torture and abuse of other people. These scenes carry off a disturbingly misogynistic streak which makes the scenes that much harder and more difficult to sit through that carries a disturbingly graphic and over-the-top series of scenes that have a great bent to it. It all makes the cathartic nature of the finale half involving the revenge and eventual escape that occurs which does manage to provide a somewhat enjoyable outcome to the rest of the generally bleak scenario. That said, there's still not a whole lot to really get into here. The majority of the film is focused mainly on the wholly uninteresting means of seeing her repeatedly being brutalized and tortured while in captivity against her will, providing nothing of any interest for those who don't care too much for this kind of hardcore material. Regardless of how impressive the scenes are there's very little here that makes an impression in the numerous other films in the genre out there that attempt a similar style which is somewhat unappealing as it goes along. That tends to make the section feel rather redundant and repetitive with the film focusing on the outlandish abuse and torture that's going on in the facility with the whole idea that she's involved in the torture to satisfy her own desires that everything comes off as highly unlikable before indulging in the cruelty on display of torturing screaming women. As well, there's also the films' overlong and unnecessary setup that makes this one far too lengthy for this type of storyline. The majority of the first half here involving the setup of the mysterious drug and the shady corporation at the center of the mystery surrounding them comes off quite convoluted and complex for what of film this is. Rather than inviting itself into a dark conspiracy that gets worked out within the course of her investigation, there's just straight dropping her into the fray without much explanation so it tends to be far more involved than it should at the very beginning. Likewise, the other issue is again the fact that none of this is all that interesting or enjoyable to sit through since it's just a bland corporate thriller about the mysterious drug and its effects as what really goes on throughout here. These are what hold the film back for the most part.

Rated Unrated/R: Extreme Graphic Violence, Graphic Language, and drug use.