Torture Chamber

It is ironic that Torture Chamber contains the word I felt most in tune with while viewing – torture. The new horror film from writer/director Dante Tomaselli (Satan's Playground) was so bad it was torturous to watch through 93 minutes. The film opens with our introduction to 13-year-old Jimmy (Carmen LoPorto). For reasons to be explained later, Jimmy's first appearance on screen has him bound in an animal cage. His face appears burned and scared making his blue eyes all that more piercing and ominous. A Catholic priest is present but Jimmy is possessed by an extreme evil and his powers lead to his escape. Jimmy then recruits an army of children who follow his instruction on a murderous rampage on teachers, doctors….just about anyone who ever looked at Jimmy in his past. The victims are dragged to an abandoned hideout where they are tortured until death. The above synopsis may sound like a film full of fun, blood and satanic overtones, but Torture Chamber is handled so ineptly that you can't help but think that being a victim of Jimmy would be less painful than trying to squeeze any drip of entertainment value out of Tomaselli's effort. Most of the faults can be found in the screenplay and the unmotivated actors that were hired to play out Tomasell's script. None of the cast comes out smelling like roses but its Soprano's star Vincent Pastore who has the most egg on his face as Dr. Fiore. The actor says his lines as if he was acting in a high school play without the benefit of a rehearsal. Most of his dialogue sounded as if he was just winging it – forced and awkward. It's been a long time since I have been embarrassed for an actor involved with a paying project, but poor Pastore was in my prayers after screening. When it comes to the horror genre, you can sometimes mask bad acting, a bad script and any misdirection if you have the gore to help you overlook the faults. Not here. Torture Chamber's gore is ridiculously bad. Hardly any blood. Hardly any ingenuity when it comes to the ritual killings. Hardly any fun. All this makes Torture Chamber one of the worst films of the year. A zero out of five stars. That's not to say that we won't have interest to see Tomaselli's next effort, but this one needs to be put in a plastic bag with spray paint fumes and burned.

Ok, the story idea was freaking awesome. Execution really bad. It didn't have anyone who could act. Or even anyone who was any good at making a film. The slow camera moves were just like watching Italian horror films from the 70s. Takes 10 minutes to get across the room. So I was fast forwarding a lot. I think the burnt kid was the best, he had no lines. The filming locations were good, eerie and creepy atmosphere. This needs a remake, by Blumhouse or James Wan. It's always more fun when it's the kids doing the damage than the adults. Some of the ideas have been done before, but it has potential, just done by someone else.

With a title like Torture Chamber I assumed this was a torture porn effort but it's something even worse.

Torture Chamber tells the fragmented story of a horribly burnt child who his mother claims is pure evil. He has rounded up the other children from the burns unit and goes on a murder/torture spree with them.

Trouble is it's all so very bad. Kids are simply not scary, apparently the child has powers but it's neither explained how or exactly what they are and the whole thing is just a bit of a mess.

Production values are there alas the competent writing staff clearly weren't.

The Good:

I'll get back to you on that one

The Bad:

Dreadful sound balancing in places

Messy storyline

Bland cast

Things I Learnt From This Movie:

One line of the lords prayer will get a car started

Kids are not and will never be good antagonists

You will laugh a couple times, shake your head at the rest of it.

One scene in particular that basically defines the whole thing is where the lady is walking down the hallway, and behind her some kind of trap door slowly opens, keep in mind she's walking away from it. Then, it opens all the way and she catapults head first down some kind of chute or hole that I guess was the trap door, behind her, in the hallway. So she went from walking upright to plunging headfirst down a pit behind her. I think we rewinded that scene ten times to keep the laugh going.

You can tell there was quite a bit poured into this thing, I mean there are quite a few actors in it, lots of different sets, but overall bad. If you wanted this 'quality' but way more gore, look up dard divorce.

Jesus , Mary and Joseph , help me!!! I have to write at least ten lines in my review but honestly , there is not much to say about this movie. Simply that it is one of the worst movies of the year and one of the worst things I've seen in my whole my life. Ever. It is not scary in any moment. Nothing at all. It is so ridiculous , that it's funny some moments , making me laugh a lot. At least this... This is the only reason I gave 1 out 10 stars. And for what should be a horror movie , this is really a bad one. The make up is terrible. The gore, weak. The acting very ,very poor. The script , awful. The plot, a shame. I couldn't help but watching this,skipping it. And even this way, it was a torture and a complete waste of time. I even slap my own face trying to wake up from this bad dream.But for my surprise and desolation , I was already awaken. This is what I call " torture porn". From the concepts to the execution , a evil thing. In a real bad sense of the word. Run away from it.