The Tortured is set in Vermont & starts as six year old Benjamin Landry (Thomas Greenwood) is abducted from his front garden, his father Craig (Jesse Metcalfe) is moments too late to save his son & after giving a short chase phones the police. Two cops visit the home of John Kozlowski (Bill Moseley) & find Benjamin's dead body in his basement, Kozlowski is arrested, put on trial & subsequently convicted of abduction & murder. Kozolwski is given 25 years which means he might be out in 10 on parole, Craig & his wife Elise (Erika Christensen) are devastated & decide to dish out their own justice to Kozlowski. They follow the prison van he is being transported in & manage to steal it, Craig crashes the van as he speeds through the countryside but both he & Kozlowski survive. Craig & Elise take the badly injured Kozlowski to a remote cabin & in the basement torture him in revenge for killing their son, however they begin to question themselves & the FBI are closing in as well...
This American & Canadian co-production was directed by Robert Lieberman & is an odd film that I thought had mixed messages, on the one hand it starts off as a serious drama as two parents have to deal with the loss of their child but then turns into something much different as the Saw (2004) style torture & gore take center stage along with an twist ending which had the potential to be great. The issue of child abduction is a very serious & real one, The Tortured does a reasonable job of setting the story up & showing the effects of such an incident but this seems present only to justify all the torture & nastiness that follows. The themes in The Tortured are quite strong, child abduction like I said as well as the strong desire for revenge & just how far people are willing to go to right a perceived injustice. Both aspects are handled pretty well, the human drama at the start & the grisly tortures that follow, there's a fair bit of nasty torture here with Craig explaining it all in uncomfortable detail to his victim which is obviously aimed at the audience just so they know how much something is going to hurt or that the poor guy will be awake & be able to feel everything while it's happening. The character's are alright, the two parents seem to flip between feeling guilty & remorseful to brimming with hatred & vengeance a bit too often though. The script is hard to take seriously at times though, there are also huge leaps of logic involved & most viewers will have questions about some of the event's. How did Craig & Elise know what prison van Kowloski was in or when he was going to be transfered? Why wasn't Craig more injured in the crash? Then there's the twist ending which had great potential but some lazy writing & bad editing makes things a little unclear, you will have to see it for yourself & while most of it does actually make sense the film isn't clear enough & again you need to suspend your disbelief at some of the events, coincidences & twists.
Filmed in 2007 but remained unreleased until 2010 The Tortured is shot a fairly low key way & doesn't go for flashy camera tricks or editing, I am sure that was the intention. There's some nasty torture scenes here, while they don't result directly in anyone's death they do make you feel a little uneasy at times. A foot is clamped in a vice & slowly crushed, a huge syringe is inserted into an ear to burst the guy's ear drum, people are burned, beaten & in one scene a stomach is sliced open & intestines are pulled out. The special effects are pretty good as well, I didn't notice any CGI computer effects either, this is on set make-up & prosthetics.
The IMDb says the The Tortured had a budget of about $8,500,000 which I find impossible to believe, where did all the money go? No big stars, no big action scenes or exotic locations. The acting is alright if not exactly moving, you should probably feel more for the character's here than what I did.
The Tortured is a decent horror thriller, it has it's moments where it's very effective & that twist ending is pretty good even if it's badly scripted & badly edited. At only 75 minutes long it's quick as well, The Tortured is reasonably good at what it sets out to do.
This American & Canadian co-production was directed by Robert Lieberman & is an odd film that I thought had mixed messages, on the one hand it starts off as a serious drama as two parents have to deal with the loss of their child but then turns into something much different as the Saw (2004) style torture & gore take center stage along with an twist ending which had the potential to be great. The issue of child abduction is a very serious & real one, The Tortured does a reasonable job of setting the story up & showing the effects of such an incident but this seems present only to justify all the torture & nastiness that follows. The themes in The Tortured are quite strong, child abduction like I said as well as the strong desire for revenge & just how far people are willing to go to right a perceived injustice. Both aspects are handled pretty well, the human drama at the start & the grisly tortures that follow, there's a fair bit of nasty torture here with Craig explaining it all in uncomfortable detail to his victim which is obviously aimed at the audience just so they know how much something is going to hurt or that the poor guy will be awake & be able to feel everything while it's happening. The character's are alright, the two parents seem to flip between feeling guilty & remorseful to brimming with hatred & vengeance a bit too often though. The script is hard to take seriously at times though, there are also huge leaps of logic involved & most viewers will have questions about some of the event's. How did Craig & Elise know what prison van Kowloski was in or when he was going to be transfered? Why wasn't Craig more injured in the crash? Then there's the twist ending which had great potential but some lazy writing & bad editing makes things a little unclear, you will have to see it for yourself & while most of it does actually make sense the film isn't clear enough & again you need to suspend your disbelief at some of the events, coincidences & twists.
Filmed in 2007 but remained unreleased until 2010 The Tortured is shot a fairly low key way & doesn't go for flashy camera tricks or editing, I am sure that was the intention. There's some nasty torture scenes here, while they don't result directly in anyone's death they do make you feel a little uneasy at times. A foot is clamped in a vice & slowly crushed, a huge syringe is inserted into an ear to burst the guy's ear drum, people are burned, beaten & in one scene a stomach is sliced open & intestines are pulled out. The special effects are pretty good as well, I didn't notice any CGI computer effects either, this is on set make-up & prosthetics.
The IMDb says the The Tortured had a budget of about $8,500,000 which I find impossible to believe, where did all the money go? No big stars, no big action scenes or exotic locations. The acting is alright if not exactly moving, you should probably feel more for the character's here than what I did.
The Tortured is a decent horror thriller, it has it's moments where it's very effective & that twist ending is pretty good even if it's badly scripted & badly edited. At only 75 minutes long it's quick as well, The Tortured is reasonably good at what it sets out to do.