Steven Shainberg is the director who gave us the fascinating BDSM satire Secretary and the flawed but interesting drama Fur: An Imaginary Portrait of Diane Arbus. Now, sadly, he has directed and co-written this unrewarding adventure in torture-porn horror.
Noomi Rapace plays Renee, a divorced single mom who out of the blue one day is kidnapped and kept for experimentation by a cult who believe that putting people into extreme terror situations causes their nervous system to “rupture” and morph into a higher order of being. Renee rashly reveals to her captors that she is scared of spiders and so … uh-oh. Yet Renee happens to have a sharp blade on her, which the guards don’t notice in her hands even while she is in a drugged unconscious state. And this is an ultra-secure prison that does not have CCTV in the cells, allowing Renee some daring escapes through old-fashioned overhead ventilation shafts and then some equally silly moments when she re-installs herself back on her prison gurney, pretending to be still strapped in.
Yikes! The pattern on the walls appears to be a homage to the carpet in the The Shining’s Overlook Hotel. The silliness and nastiness outweigh the possible interest.
