The production company behind the Saw franchise, Twisted Pictures, produced this film called The Tortured. From the title of the film it is not going to be difficult for you to imagine what sort of film that it is going to be. Although it does not involve the characters from saw, the movie is similar in pretty much every other way.
The film starts with the kidnapping of a young boy Ben, from the front garden of his house. His father has gone inside for a moment, and this is when the kidnapper takes his opportunity to kidnap the boy. As it turns out, the boy has been kidnapped by a well-known serial killer and he kills the child before the police can stop him.
As would be expected, this puts a great strain on the marriage of the parents, and it is especially strained when the killer cuts a deal in order to avoid spending life in jail. The parents feel that justice has not been done and so they decide to take the law into their own hands. They create a plan where they will catch the person who killed their child, and then torture him.
After they’ve captured the killer, the father uses his knowledge of medicine in order to keep him alive while they torture him. The police are onto what they’re doing and they have to stay one step ahead of them in order to continue torturing him.
This film is somewhat different from Saw because it is the other way round. Instead of innocent people being captured and tortured by a serial killer, the serial killer is the one being tortured. This film deals with far more emotions than Saw and parents in the audience will probably feel some amount of empathy for the parents in the film.
Once they have captured him, the film turns into a rather predictable thriller. Occasional emotional strain is put into the film although it is never particularly effective. As the movie progresses it becomes clear that the mother no longer wants to continue with their plan, however the father only gets a stronger blood lust with each round of torture that they inflict on the killer.
The film does have a twist at the end which sheds a different light on the events, it is probably one of the only really interesting things that happens in the film and the audience will be disappointed that it ends just as it is getting interesting.
The script is generally poorly put together and other than the twist, it doesn’t really do a great deal to stimulate the audiences mind. The short running time will be a relief for most people who have gone to the cinema as they won’t want to watch any more torture on the big screen.
The short running time of the movie perhaps excuses some of the character depth issues, but the audience was still find themselves struggling to believe many of the emotions which are displayed on the screen.
CFY 