Captivity Photo Gallery
Check out new pics from Elisha Cuthbert's kidnapped model-torture flick
So this is what it's come to, huh folks? "Kidnapped model-torture flick" is now a genre, to be referred to as blithely as we might refer to "Spider-Man 3, Tobey Maguire's new superhero flick?"
It would of course be wrong of me to prejudge the film, but I think I can at least extrapolate a little based on the known elements. Captivity is, according to what I can tell from the page on RT and a little Yahoo! searching, a movie about a beautiful model who is stalked and killed.
While I have nothing against Ms. Cuthbert, my impression of her is that of a sexy young woman who may or may not be the sharpest knife in the drawer. (Though at least she had the sense to get out of CTU while the getting was good, so I have to give her credit for that)
Captivity is directed by Roland Joffe, who hasn't made a succesful movie since The Mission in 1986, and even that is better remembered for its soundtrack today than the film itself. The screenplay is co-written by Larry Cohen, who occasionally shows some stuff but mostly writes exploitation pictures, and Joseph Tura, whose first film it is.
A couple of months ago the studio releasing the movie withdrew their original ad campaign.
The ads, which portrayed the film's star Elisha Cuthbert being tortured and killed, were pulled after After Dark, Lionsgate Films and the MPAA were bombarded with calls from people objecting to the imagery.
Personally, I don't know why those folks had a problem. The original ads, reproduced in this Access Hollywood online story, showed even better than the now-MPAA approved ad, exactly what this film is, evidently, about: A beautiful woman being tortured and killed.
It's actually brilliant marketing on at least two levels. It makes sure to attract those theatergoers, and only those theatergoers, who would want to see a movie about a beautiful woman being tortured and killed.
It doesn't try to sell us some sort of multiple-times-watered-down version of Diana Rigg's Mrs Peel (or more likely in the minds of Hollywood studio execs, Buffy). Some champion of feminism and force for good who triumphs over bad by being cute and kicking ass; after and only after we've gotten our jollies seeing her...
...with a gloved hand across her face.
...pressed against a chain link fence with a bloody finger poking through.
...lying on a table with her face covered in bandages and a tube shoved up her nose.
...all scenes the withdrawn series of ads promised.
No no, this is about a beautiful woman being tortured and killed. Excellent.
Why excellent? Because when the movie opens in about a week, women everywhere will have a litmus test by which to judge the men who would like to keep company with them.
Ladies...
- If you're married and your husband wants to watch this movie, divorce him.
- If you're single, and a new man asks you out to go see this movie, do not go out with him.
- If you have a steady boyfriend, and he says to you, "Say honey, whadaya say we check out that kidnapped model-torture flick?"...break up with him.
A man who says "I want to see Captivity!" is a man who says "Watching women being tortured and killed is how I get off!" Clearly and explicitly.
You don't need that in your life. Do you?
9 comments:
Hey! Great post. What a horrible potential genre. No doubt this movie is going to gift us with a disturbing, lengthy rape scene as well. Ugh, what a disgusting trend!
Thanks for posting.
No problem, thank you for reading and commenting.
Thank the good graces there are still men like you that exist! And, thank you for the refreshing and honest review.
Well, I can't hear enough of that. Three, four, five times a day.
I went to see 28 Weeks Later this weekend and there was a trailer for Hostel 2. The entire tagline was "if you want an American girl, that'll cost you."
Obviously being Hostel it's "if you want to torture and kill and American girl..."
I did not see the first Hostel, but I read some online reviews and it was about American MEN being tortured and killed. Why don't they just change the whole movie to become X-rated porn and just be honest about their intentions.
I, like Newscat, would like for this genre to finally go all the way and admit to being what it is: death porn. It's wannabe snuff films with tacked-on morals for people who want to see the woman get tortured for her feminine beauty and then saved either by becoming masculine, getting rescued by masculine heroes, or dying for her beauty.
Someday I'd like to see a major studio American film where there's lots of nudity, some sex, and loads of beautiful women without having to endure torture, drugs, stalking, guilt, rape, or phony moralizing.
Thanks for this. You're right-- I never would have married my husband if he got off on this kind of shit. *shudder*
Would you cut someone some slack if they told you the reason they were interested in the movie was morbid curiosity? If I told you you shouldn't look at the infamous Goatse picture because it's disturbing, at least one person listening would be tempted to Google it.
Not much, no.
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