2016 October Horror Challenge #40: "The Tortured"

This is one of the movies I wanted to watch last year but never got around to it. That happens sometimes, but the plot of this movie was intriguing enough for me to remember it throughout the year and want to revisit it today. It didn't get the best reviews, but I was hopeful that it would be worth a watch anyway.

The plot of the movie is pretty simple. A married couple decide to get revenge on the man who kidnapped and killed their son. Knowing this kind of puts a damper on the movie watching experience, because while the couple and the police are frantically searching for the boy, I knew what would happen to him. It manages to be tense and creepy anyway, though, which is a plus. I can't imagine how horrible it would be to lose a child that way, and I would want to kill the guy responsible too.

Bill Mosley, who plays the kidnapper, is a good actor, so he nails the role of creepy scumbag well. I also like Erika Christiensen and Jesse Metcalf, who play the parents, but they seem a little wooden here. I can empathize with their situation, but it's kind of hard to feel for them when they act this detached. Plus the plot seems a little holey and I'm just not sure it would be this easy for them to do what they do.

I was too busy being annoyed at all these flaws, so I missed the setup for the ending, which is OK, but kinda heavy handed.  Stop preaching at me, movie, I have things to do.  In the end this movie was OK, but not the best I've ever seen. They could have had something here if they took a little more care with the plot, but in the end the holes annoy me too much for this to have the impact it wants to have.