The aim is laudable enough: to subvert the depressingly popular girl-imprisoned-and-tortured genre, and put the power in the hands of the victim. Director José Manuel Cravioto doesn’t show the abduction of 21-year-old Eve (Tina Ivlev), nor does he get into the specifics of her maltreatment at the hands of grubby perv Phil (Richard Tyson). For that, we must be grateful. But her escape and subsequent race against time to free Phil’s other female prisoners takes us to places that are no less distasteful for the fact that it is her holding the gun rather than him.
It’s effectively a treasure hunt for scantily clad chicks in chains, interspersed with video footage of Eve and her boyfriend Ronnie (Kristoffer Kjornes) in happier times. The production design features photogenic filth and lots of makeshift plywood cells lit with erratic torchlight and blood-drenched crimson hues. But Ivlev’s spirited performance is undermined by the fact that her character’s actions are so far-fetched, it would be easier to believe if she sprouted wings and flew out of captivity.
