A surprisingly good little indie film that loses its focus from time to time, but is supported by surprising performances by unknown actors. A good horror/giallo/slasher film needs a good antagonist, and in this film that role switches sides very effectively.
The movie opens with a bang, as an attractive young woman (Tara Price) awakes to find herself stripped naked and locked in a cage on the shore of a lake. A cable is strung from one end of the cage and, as she screams, the cage is dragged into the water. Roll title sequence.
How's that for an opening? The movie then goes back in time about a year, as two young women, lounging in a hot tub, complain about all of the creepers they meet through online dating. Bored and endowed with both good looks and a sense of Millennial entitlement, they decide to have some fun with a creeper and see how much power they can exert over an unsuspecting and desperate man. They recruit two more friends to help string Jerry Tobin (played very well by Darryl Baldwin) into a connection with promises of friendship. They flash their breasts in a "Mardi Gras moment" to coerce Jerry into performing disgusting acts of depravity (licking his toilet, tazing his own mouth and neck, and whipping himself with a belt for starters) for their amusement. Eventually they grow tired of the tricks and decide to up the ante by exerting the ultimate form of control over a person - taking his life. They lure him to a desolate location, goad him into drinking wine laced with muscle relaxants, and then attack him. They believe they have killed him, except the police can't find a body. A killer on the loose is news, and it turns out that Jerry wasn't "a retard" as the girls assumed. Rather, he's a Gulf War vet suffering mental trauma who was on medication that rendered him child-like. Jerry, it seems, is having difficulty adjusting to civilization.
Back to present time. The girl in the opening scene is getting ready to take a shower, not knowing that Jerry is waiting. She's subdued and wakes up in the cage, which is then dragged into the water by a cable. What follows is a series of situations involving the other girls caught in miscellaneous perils. For every act the girls made him do to himself, they are in turn forced to endure themselves. Scat, whipping, electrocution, nudity, water torture, exposure, strangulation, and humiliation are in store for the girls as each succumbs to Jerry's wrath.
To tie this film back to its grind-house horror inspirations, static and degradation lines are superimposed over the picture, along with jumpy camera-work and color fading in certain scenes. To be honest, this is overkill. We know this is a grind-house flick. It doesn't need to be beaten over our heads (like Jerry does to one victim). The nudity is almost-but-not-quite gratuitous, and if anything one scene involving electro-torture is degraded because of a lack of it. Anyone who's worked with electricity will tell you that bare skin works better as a conductor than trying to shock someone through the resistance of their clothing. That the victims should be left clothed defies logic. However, the other torture scenes work well because of the nudity, and credit must go to Monica Chambers for her willingness to play her character's whipping scene properly. I also have to give credit to Tara Price for her scenes in the shower, in the cage, in the water, and walking through the woods. I had her pegged as the character most likely to have the ability to take Jerry down. Had her character not been killed off so clumsily, she could have stolen this film for herself, much like Steve McQueen stole "The Magnificent Seven" from Yule Brenner.
A good thriller needs a good villain, and Darryl Baldwin does an excellent job setting up his character's personality. Baldwin doesn't speak a single line of dialogue, yet he's able to convey a sense of child-like innocence in one moment, then stone-cold military operative the next. I'd love to see Mr. Baldwin do more "So-Evil-I-Love-Him" roles. He's got the gift for it.
The supporting actors, particularly those portraying the police tactical team, do a credible job. Usually these roles are hugely overlooked by directors, but the casting team did an excellent job finding extras that could portray credible SWAT members. It's the little things like this that can make or break a movie.
This film is surprisingly re-watchable, though some dialogue scenes are almost too blatant to watch, particularly the self-expository dialogue in the hot tub as the girls smoke cigars and discuss their motivations, and again in the woods when the two principal characters are being pursued by Jerry and decide to stop running long enough to discuss their plan for escape. Seriously?
Weaknesses? Yes. As I mentioned, the expository dialogue is unnecessary and clumsy. Leaving victims clothed for electro-torture is a huge technical error. The digital grit, jumpy camera, static, and blood splatter get old. The acting isn't stellar, but good enough on the whole; Tara Price should have been given more to do and will no doubt turn up again in future films. Darryl Baldwin could have a future playing heavies much the same way Danny Trejo has made a career doing.
Overall, this film is definitely worth a quiet evening at home.
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