By Karyn Beach

Captivity is the latest in the genre known as ‘torture porn’ – films that get their rocks off by seeing how cruel, sadistic and disgusting they can be to the poor, hapless victim. I felt like a victim of torture porn myself while watching Captivity – I was being held captive and subjected to a cruel, sadistic, disgusting and utterly useless bad film.

The plot is simple. Jennifer Trees (Elisha Cuthbert), a popular model, is abducted by a sick sadist who wants to perform all sorts of psychological and physical tortures on her. After several days, she is joined by a guy named Gary (Daniel Gillies). Together they bond (and have sex, of course) and try desperately to find a way out. Towards the end of the movie (and I’m using that term loosely), the writers remember that a film is supposed to have a ‘plot’ and they use the last 20 minutes or so to tack a plot and a motive for the sadist’s actions. Whatever.

It’s not that I’m offended by movies that show extreme violence. But movies that show extreme violence just for the hell of showing extreme violence are disturbing. Movies that show gratuitous extreme violence and don’t bother with little, silly things like plot, acting, or writing piss me off. This was truly 92 minutes of my life I cannot get back! And I want it back!!!!

The movie waste no time giving fans what they want. It takes about 10 minutes before Jennifer is abducted and she’s not the most sympathetic character. We get to know her through interviews of hers that are played during her captivity. From what we see in the interviews, she’s a self-absorbed bitch of the highest order.

Then out of the blue, there is a guy next to her. I knew where this was headed from the beginning and I was right.

And this is just a pet peeve of mine but if you were in a life-or-death situation and your very survival was at stake, would you actually stop everything to ‘make love’? I wouldn’t. “Hey, we can do it all night long, hanging from the chandelier once we get out of here but for now, keep it in your pants.”

The first two-thirds of the film deliver the standard ‘torture’ fare; however, the third act offers a torture of another kind as the filmmakers attempt to explain why the sadist is what he is and resolve the whole Jessica situation. It moves from the improbable to the ridiculous to the completely preposterous. I found myself saying to the screen “Oh, come on!”

You’d have to be a masochist to enjoy this film.