I've been wanting to watch this movie for awhile now. Netflix keeps recommending it to me based on all these other movies that I've liked, so I'm hopeful that it will be good. It's about a woman who is kidnapped and assaulted, but escapes and turns the tables on her captor, who may have done this to other women as well (most likely, since sickos like this usually have multiple victims). With all the bad things happening in the world around me, it's good sometimes to watch a movie where bad things happen to bad people for once.
There's a long tradition of movies where victims are raped but they survive and take revenge on their rapists. It's even a horror subgenre creatively dubbed "rape and revenge" movies. The most famous of these movies is probably "I Spit on Your Grave," of which I like both the original and the remake, which may even be more brutal than it's predecessor. That was a surprising turn of events, since I and many fans of the original movie worried that the remake would be watered down. People think I'm nuts of course for watching these movies, but I think rape and assault are horrible things, and when movies portray them as horrible things that victims can survive and transcend, that's a good thing.
This movie is a little different in that the victim isn't just getting revenge for her own crime, but is trying to save other possible victims. I like the twist that puts on the story. The acting is good too, which always helps. I felt for the victim and hated the killer, but I also enjoyed watching them play off each other as the story progressed. What can I say? Good performances turn me on.
It's also interesting seeing the flashbacks as the movie goes on. We get to see our victim in happier times, before the assault, and contrast that with who she has become after the trauma. This kind of movie really doesn't work unless the actors are good enough to carry the whole film basically by themselves, so shout out to Tina Ivlev as out victim and Richard Tyson as our perpetrator, two relative unknowns who knocked me off my ass with their great performances. Bianca Malinowski shows up later in the movie playing a character, and she's good in her role too.
Of course, I've seen enough of these movies to know better than to believe everything it seems to be telling me. I'm sure the movie is hiding twists up its sleeve, and with how twisted this movie already is, that's gotta be pretty fucked up. A lot of these movies play on the victims feeling guilty, guilt for getting abducted, guilt for surviving while their other friends might have died, things like that. And this particular victim has more reasons to feel guilty than most. Still, it bothers me, because sometimes you're put in horrible situations, and when you do what you have to do to survive, it's hard to see people feeling guilty for that. This movie plays off a lot of things that get under my skin and freak me out, with human monsters like the ones in this movie that are much scarier than make believe monsters. I'm impressed with how good this movie was, and I'm glad I checked it out, though I have a feeling it will be haunting my dreams for awhile after it ends.
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