Captivity (2007)
Captivity opens Friday, July 13th after much controversy regarding billboards advertising the movie that were deemed offensive and misogynist. The billboards featured four panels, each with a picture of Elisha Cuthbert’s character in different states of distress. One of the panels read “Abduction,” the next “Confinement,” then “Torture” and, finally, “Termination.” Everyone has their own opinions on the billboard, but personally I didn’t think they were a big deal. There are billboards and other advertisements that portray women far worse.
Whatever your opinions, our intrepid staff member Siko Mike got a sneak peek at the film and didn’t find it all that disappointing. Read on for his review.
Review by Siko Mike
Jennifer is a beautiful model who has had everything that she ever wanted. One day she is captured and wakes up in a room with no windows. Soon she realizes that she is not alone and that a guy named Gary is in the room next to her. They find themselves in a maze of terror as the entire place is rigged with traps. Someone is jealous of her charmed life and wants to play a nasty game of cat and mouse.
As you can tell from the plot, this movie is far from original. This film kinda reminds me a little of Saw but without all the gory details. Captivity shows very little gore and basically shows Jennifer and some guy helping each other to try and escape their kidnapper’s little playhouse. There are, however, very clever traps throughout this film, like a small room that is filled with sand and supposed to bury Jennifer alive. There is also a scene where a car is in a garage and the kidnapper rigs it to where when they start the car, the doors will lock and it will fill up with poison gas. Another thing that I liked was that kidnapper had a switch for everything and could mess with them like make doors open and close.
I will give Captivity some credit on cleverness but it also has its flaws as well. The setting is dark through half of the movie and there wasn’t a whole lot of violence as I was expecting or even killings except for maybe 3 or 4. Also another thing that really annoyed me was that we don’t learn more about the kidnapper. He basically just sits in a room and watches on the video monitor while Jennifer and Gary try to escape or run into traps. This movie seriously is like a watered down version of Saw with the traps, video monitors and so on. The acting was alright, not really perfect but it was believable by Elisha Cuthbert and Daniel Gillies. There is a twist at the end that I thought was very smart indeed. All and all Captivity was a pretty good film and was entertaining, maybe not the best but pretty good to say the least.
Available on Amazon
Popularity: 1% [?]
[ ‹‹ The Psychomanteum (2007) HorrorHound 2007 Weekend Report ›› ]
2006 2007 2008 2009 awesome 80s bad movies Best of bloody book review boring brutal campy creepy disturbing Fatally Yours film festival fun ghosts gore haunted horror comedy Horror Literature humorous independent insanity interview low-budget madness monsters murders News psychological release info revenge sequel serial killer short film slasher supernatural unique vampires violent Women in Horror Worst of Zombies