More dull than upsetting -- repetitive than worth condemnation.
Captivity (2007)
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Reviews Counted:71
Fresh:5
Rotten:66
Average Rating:2.7/10
Consensus: Lacking scares or psychological insight, Captivity is a distasteful entry in the 'torture porn' subgenre.
Rated: 18 [See Full Rating] for strong violence, torture, pervasive terror, grisly images, language and some sexual material.
Runtime: 1 hr 38 mins
Genre: Horror/Suspense
Theatrical Release:22-06-2007
Synopsis: Top cover girl and fashion model, Jennifer Tree (ELISHA CUTHBERT) has it all - beauty, fame, money and power. Her face appears on covers of hundreds of magazines. At the top of her game, Jennifer... Top cover girl and fashion model, Jennifer Tree (ELISHA CUTHBERT) has it all - beauty, fame, money and power. Her face appears on covers of hundreds of magazines. At the top of her game, Jennifer is America's sweetheart. She is loved and adored and sought after. Everyone wants her. But someone out there has been watching and waiting. Someone wants her in the worst way. Out alone at a charity event in Soho, Jennifer is drugged and taken. Held captive in a cell, Jennifer is subjected to a series of terrifying, life-threatening tortures that could only be conceived by a twisted, sadistic mind. Inspired by the fact that over 850,000 are reported missing every year in the United States, many of whom are never seen again, CAPTIVITY follows the story of one woman who is abducted and tortured, held against her will in a place where days turn into weeks. Her will to escape and survive is challenged every moment by a maniac's desire to demoralize innocent victims and play out his sick game that has been played many times before Jennifer was taken. A combination of SAW and HOSTEL meets SILENCE OF THE LAMBS, CAPTIVITY is a psychological thriller/horror film that shows us the true terror of the crimes of abduction and confinement that are committed every day by serial killers and psychopaths at large. Directed by acclaimed filmmaker Roland Joffe (THE KILLING FIELDS, THE MISSION), CAPTIVITY delves deeply into the minds of both captor and victim with a fresh and terrifying view of this epidemic horror. Being released this summer in theatres nation-wide, CAPTIVITY has been called one of the most controversial films of the year. It's a disturbing and raw, yet classy and thought provoking film which will leave you terrified, and looking over your shoulder as you leave the theatre wondering if you could be next. --© After Dark Films [More]
Starring: Elisha Cuthbert, Pruitt Taylor Vince, Laz Alonso, Daniel Gillies
Starring: Elisha Cuthbert, Pruitt Taylor Vince, Laz Alonso, Daniel Gillies, Michael Harney, Mark Damon
Director: Roland Joffé
Director: Roland Joffé
Screenwriter: Larry Cohen, Joseph Tura
Producer: Mark Damon
Composer: Marco Beltrami
Studio: After Dark Films
Reviews for Captivity
It feels desperate from beginning to end, and is only offensive in that it presumes to be better than we think...
It's just the same old same old repackaged as the new worst offender.
Even worse than the movie's being torture-porn junk is the fact that it's also incredibly boring...as predictable as it is ugly and tedious.
Some inventive individual moments aside, Captivity is off-puttingly derivative and clumsily written.
Rarely have I found myself so uncomfortable viewing anything over such an extended period of time. There's nothing redeemable here. It's not tense or scary; it's just demented.
This Saw wannabe fails on many levels, including forgetting to do what it's supposed to do: deliver potentially delicious gory moments.
No acting, no pulse-pounding suspense, no humor or vicarious visceral thrills. There's a story, here, and not on the screen. It's about what happened to a once-fine filmmaker that brought him this low.
There's no deeper significance, no clever mind game played on the audience, no commentary on violence. Frankly, it's kinda dull.
When, in the last few minutes, Cuthbert finally slipped her bonds and began looking for her tormentors, I knew exactly how she felt.
It's a Saw rip-off with less smarts. (Take a moment, please, to allow that sentence to sink in.)
I never, ever imagined the experience of spending 80 minutes watching Elisha Cuthbert could be so punishing and vile.
Courtney Solomon tried to polish the turd by adding some torture scenes, but all he did was make the turd turdier.
Although shot with a modicum of style by a seriously slumming Roland Joffe... nothing terribly thrilling happens in this 'thriller.'
The controversy may have piqued the curiosity of horror fans but the film is undeserving of any further attention, managing to be both nastily unpleasant and laughably ludicrous.
Captivity has the compulsory quality of a straight-to-DVD movie -- and considering the fast-fading torture-porn movement, that's no doubt the destiny of similar offerings to follow.
Latest News for Captivity
January 22, 2008:
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No awards season -- even a strike-tainted one -- would be complete without the Razzies, right? Of course not. And that's why we've thoughtfully assembled all of this year's... More...
December 19, 2007:
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The poster submitted by ThinkFilm for Taxi to the Dark Side -- the Alex Gibney documentary opening January 11 -- has been rejected by the MPAA. More...
August 09, 2007:
Box Office Guru Preview: Chan and Tucker Back in Action
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July 20, 2007:
Larry Cohen Plans Remakes of It's Alive, Black Caesar, and The Stuff
Long before he wrote movies like "Phone Booth," "Cellular," and (ugh) "Captivity," filmmaker Larry Cohen was making horror movies about killer babies. And (guess what?) he just... More...
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