Monday, November 2, 2009

Grand Guignol Week, Pt. the First: "Captivity".

Good evening!
I welcome you back to 8th Row Center, although
you may not want to park here tonight -- or for the next five nights -- as I dig into contemporary Grand Guignol. Once again: I Watch It So You Don't Have To!
A quick history. Grand Guignol was a Theatre of Horror that came out of Paris in the late 1800s, which specialized in grossing and/or delighting patrons with short acts of simulated
blood and gore, leavened with comic acts. Dubbed "amoral theater", it pre-dated slasher flicks, hell, even the cinema itself, but left a trickle of blood and moral disdain that still flows past our eyes today.
And, oh, you lucky people! For the next five nights, in alphabetical order, I'll be investigating, with complete neutral appraisal the top grossers. And I don't mean box office gross, eitha'.
Using a stop watch, I'll tick off when the sharp blades start a-slicing, when any sign of actual plot appears, and when a character fin
ally stops twitching. Is there any art to this ugly artifice?
Let's begin! (Putting on a plastic raincoat and moving my popcorn away from the screen.)

Torture Porn #1: "Captivity," 2007, directed by Roland Joffe (you can put the accent over the "e" for me), with Elisha Cuthbert, released by Lionsgate and After Dark Films.
00:00 Beginning credits.
00:45 Bad guy with rubber gloves loves orange & green decor. Hypodermics. Dude wrapped in plaster bandages on table bleeding out through tubes. Why? Already kinda confusing. (Battery acid will do that to you? Really?)
02:35 Big heavy mallet to plaster man's
head. *Bonk*! Confirmed kill.
03:29 Bright red woman's lips fill the screen. I sense victim Big Time. Slo-mo, post-MTV style editing, throbbing soundtrack. Cuthbert's a popular model, loves her cute little puppy-wuppy, takes it clubbing! Gets slipped a mic
key finn. The dog did not do it.
09:54 Cuthbert kidnapped! Couldn't she tell by all the primary colors she was in danger? Oh well.
12:42 Locked in a slightly hi-tech dungeon room, Cuthbert's character, still kinda chilled out, is handed a cup of greenish slop. "Vitamins. Good for you." She tosses it. Sees one of her ads on the wall. Gas issues from ceiling! Sucks to be her. Passes out.
14:43 Cuthbert forced to watch videos of former victims. She don't feel so great h
erself. Now we're into blue & orange. Acid poured on girl in video Cuthbert is watching. Ooey-gooey. Acid poured on her, too?
17:00 Fake-out! She's fine. Almost. Even peels faked wound off her cheek.
19:00 Is hit with bright lights till she co-operates and dresses in leather gear. Crawls under bed. Outside of being a seemingly famous model, still have no ide
a what she's about. Kidnapper/torturer is faceless. Tries escaping through air vents, could tell you that wouldn't work. Still not as harrowing as all that.
22:24 Still faceless kidnapper puts body parts in blender. Frappe! Not yo
ur mother's V8. Gross-out factor at this point.
26:00 Cuthbert seems to be taking this all rather well. I'd be stone cold freaked, curled up in foetal position on floor, but she's going Nancy Drew. Supposedly another victim in an adjoining room. Cute guy. She buys into it. Loses Nancy Drew cred.
29:33 Surprise! Kidnapper watching in on conversation between captives. Mighty calm conversation for people being forced special protein diets. Meanwhile, mice in cage being gassed. Whuffo? We have animal rights issues, here.

34:00 Cuthbert knocked out again & slowly being buried in sand in a plexiglass cage. Male captive allowed to come to her rescue. Perils of Pauline. I smell a rat. Oh. That's the dead one from last scene. I can actually eat popcorn right now. This ain't so bad.
38:00 Heroes being chased by shotgun-toting kidnapper. Still don't trust the guy helping her. They find a working car? Giant net encases car, gas pumped in, heroes knocked out again.

39:40 Finally, the puppy makes a showing. Did you think we forgot? 30 seconds, she has to decide: She either shoots the dog or she gets shot herself! Don't you know you can't kill dogs or children in movies? This will all end in tears.
42:00 Dog not actually killed. Fake! I think. After a lot of disorienting camera work and long camera takes, it's hard to get a bearing on the surroundings or feel any real suspense. Zippity-do logic. Movie: Ineffective!
46:00 Cuthbert dresses up scantily for kidnapper so she can join her
hero, is shown more quick-cut torture videos of former victims. Hey, at least they get free HBO here!
49:00 Couple now trussed up, tied together at wrists, shown
more video, of kid killing mom (?) and taking Polaroids. Portrait of an artist as a young man.
51:20 Tooth pulling scene! OW. ow ow ow. I am not including art here. Dustin Hoffman getting drilled in "Marathon Man" still worse, though.

53:00 What?! Couple having sex while in captivity?? You've got to be shitting me. No plans for escape, just some casual coitus? They are kidnapped by a mad torturer with El Grosso blender & vids, right? Or did I miss something? He just got his teeth pulled out.
56:00 Male captive showing decidedly
un-kidnapped behavior. Lets himself out, watches kidvid of dead mom again. Nancy Drew FAIL.

58:00 Plot twist. New character. Fat dude in bathtub. Brother? Gay male couple in cahoots? Dialing GLAAD. Fat dude gets knifed. I. Am. So. Confused.
1:03:00 Two detectives investigating missing gal somehow come to question loverboy who shoots them and then pretends to rescue her but she finds his VHS collection of dead girlfriends which is
conveniently left out for her to find, and...
Oh, this is nutty stuff. Does anyone stay dead? If I'm kidnapped by Naomi Watts and fed my own entrails, I'm going to have rumpy-pump with her
later? There's as much horror in this sucker as getting behind on my cable bill.
My Two Cents: If the rest of these movies are of the same yawn-inducing caliber, this will be a walk in the park. A little comic book color, some sleepwalking performers, confusing set-ups, and Cuthbert walks away
without a drop of blood on her! And oh, gosh, spoiler!: She adopts the killer's M.O. and goes on a killer-killing rampage herself! Yippee! And I was so worried about all this...
Tomorrow: The Devil's Rejects. I'm ready for anything.

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