On the day they move into a new house, a Madrid couple and their daughter become the targets of a brutal home invasion by a trio of masked criminals.

Release date: 13 November 2010 (United Kingdom)
Director: Miguel Ángel Vivas
Music by: Sergio Moure
Language: Spanish

Before I get into this relatively little-known Spanish movie, I have to say a few words about how I came about it – this one is up on Shudder listed as Kidnapped, and you’d better believe I had a bloody hard time tracking down the details on IMDB. There are plenty of movies by this title, and it took a while to realise this was originally a Spanish-language film that was presented here with an English title and an English dub – there’s no option to even have the subtitles and the original dialogue. I don’t know why this bothered me so much – it just seemed an unusual thing to do to try and disguise this movie was Spanish, especially when Shudder and Amazon Prime alike have plenty of international movies out there. There’s only the odd flourish here that might make you think it isn’t American, which is maybe why this approach was taken, but I just had to say a few words about it here. And rest assured I won’t hold it against Kidnapped/Secuestrados itself!

I took a few days to try and digest this movie, as my initial reaction was pretty mixed – the story is more a home invasion tale than an actual kidnapping, with mother and father Jaime and Marta and their daughter Isa held captive by three masked individuals. The father is taken out to town by one of them to draw out all the cash they have in their accounts, while mother and daughter are held in the house by the remaining invaders. Of course, there are various attempts to escape and reach out for help, as well as an unfortunate number of visitors arriving into this nightmarish situation. This all leads to a shocking and explosive finale that certainly left an impression on me, but I won’t say any further than that for risk of spoiling the experience.

Kidnapped had plenty of strong moments, and the acting performances generally capture the fear and the harrowing nature of the situation, particularly from Manuela Velles as Isa. The tension does ratchet up throughout, although at times it was a bit too loud and in your face for my personal liking. However, there was something just slightly missing here – for me, the setup wasn’t quite as strong as it might have been, which left me feeling a bit unconnected to the characters. In this sort of movie empathy and sympathy are pivotal, and I didn’t really have that for the characters here. The bad guys themselves are weakly characterised – again, some of you might not feel that’s all that important, but it’s a worthy consideration in my eyes. Visually it’s pretty grim and dark, although one thing that really drove me to distraction was the propensity to go split screen – I know the filmmaker was trying to draw a comparison between scenes and situations, but sadly I just felt like I couldn’t concentrate on anything properly while that was going on and as such large chunks of the plot were just whistling past me. As a visual device it just felt showy and obnoxious, and it wasn’t the only instance here either.

If you like a home invasion movie, this is probably worth checking out and ticks several boxes just fine, but there are some missteps for me that do hold the rating back and stop it being a genuinely great example of the subgenre.

RATING: 6.5/10. Uneasy? Tense? Yes, both of those in spades. Well-acted? At large, yes. Bound to stick with you? Probably – I haven’t been able to properly shake it from my mind in the time since I watched it. You might think all that would ultimately lead to a stonkingly high rating, but it just doesn’t quite hit home as well as it might, with its slightly thin characterisation and some over-the-top and frustrating visual touches that it would have been better off without – less is more, as the saying so often goes. It’s not liable to brighten your day in the least, but there’s enough to like here to make it worth a watch even with the problems it has in mind – go take a look on Shudder if you fancy it.

It’s only as I come to review certain movies that certain facts about Film Gutter hit me, and in coming to look at 2002’s Dahmer it occurred to me just how few ‘serial killer’ flicks we have covered here. I suppose there’s been a handful, but that’s out of literally hundreds of reviews, and even less of those have taken in those many biopics (which of course vary immensely in how close they are to the reality) about the notorious serial killers of our time. I know they’re out there, but I’m not wildly keen on the concept in some cases and they can conjure up some complex, mixed feelings for me. What drew me to Dahmer in particular was the presence of Jeremy Renner in the lead role – a very fine actor without a doubt, and I was ultra-curious what he would bring to the role. I’m no expert in Dahmer’s crimes and transgressions, so I couldn’t talk as per the veracity of this one’s portrayal, but as a movie this one went on to be a pleasant surprise.

The story of Jeffrey Dahmer here is told in two storylines, one of him as a younger man and one of him in his twenties and cruising the club scene, selecting his victims one by one and seducing them back to his apartment. What proved a revelation was just how gory and bloody this movie wasn’t – I went in with expectations of something pretty confronting and lurid, but instead what I got was a fascinating psychological portrayal of a serial killer’s private life, taking in several telling scenes of Dahmer with his family, heading to church and spending time meeting men in gay clubs. There are some powerful scenes there without a doubt, and even more so in some of the conversations with his soon-to-be victims, many of which provide remarkable insight into his feelings and character, not just drawing him as a boogeymen. It’s not sympathetic but equally it’s not a grotesque, overblown parody – here is a serial killer as a human being rather than a monstrous other as you might see depicted elsewhere.

Many reviews have looked on this one and described it as boring, but I don’t think I could disagree more. Sure, it’s a slow burner, and if you go in expecting plenty of gruesomeness you are barking up the wrong tree – this one is liable to leave any hardcore gorehounds out there disappointed on that front. But it drew me in gradually, bit by bit, until I was absolutely riveted by what was a really striking yet simple finale. Jeremy Renner’s presence and portrayal are excellent – this was one of his first very significant film roles, and he captures the dark charisma that so many serial killers are described as having.

I’d ultimately say this might be one of the least bloody movies I’ve reviewed here, but I figure that its ballpark content and context still made this one worthy of the Film Gutter treatment – and I suppose on top of that I wanted to recommend it! If I had a criticism it would be that some of the time cuts are a bit confusing, but it didn’t detract from the experience massively, and in places those rapid switches in fact enhanced the experience. This one is free to watch on Amazon Prime, and if you’re looking for a slightly different, dare I say ‘softer’, serial killer movie then this could well be for you.

RATING: 9/10. This movie was not what I expected at all, but that turned out to be a positive here. Quiet, thoughtful and compelling, this feels a very different stripe to many movies in the subgenre and benefits from it. If you really want to see the claret flowing there will be plenty better for you, but for those of you seeking out a very dark psychological study, then you’re absolutely bound to get something out of this one. Everything felt well considered and by the time this movie had me hooked in, those hooks were in deep and I was blown away by the closing stages of this one. Well worth your time!

CHOOSE (2011)

When a scarred murderer begins posing his victims terrible choices before killing them, a journalism student is dragged into the race to prevent him striking again.
Release date: 16 March 2011 (USA)
Director: Marcus Graves

I’m sure this sort of thing existed before it, but it’s fair to say that the success of the Saw series spawned no small number of imitators. Like it, love it or hate it, across 8 movies Saw and its sequels have made all but a billion dollars at the box office, making it numerically the most successful horror franchise of all time, beating well-loved series the likes of The Nightmare on Elm Street, Friday the 13th and Hallowe’en silly. And invariably that sort of success draws people to making similar sorts of movies, opening the door for the good, bad and indifferent that goes along with that. And thus, we have 2011’s Choose, a relatively early outing for the now much better-known Katheryn Winnick (who might be familiar to you as Lagertha in Vikings) and another story of a serial killer offering disturbing and seemingly impossible choices to his victims.

So, Choose is the story of young Fiona Wagner and her father, Sheriff Tom Wagner, who find themselves caught up in a gruesome web of crime. Our perpetrator isolates his victims and then gives them sixty seconds to make a horrific decision – we open with a young girl having to choose whether to kill her mother or her father, which is probably one of the most harrowing scenes in the movie all told. Some don’t strictly involve death, but in some cases you could take them as worse fates than even that. Tom is hunting after the killer when Fiona is contacted by the perpetrator, and finds herself inexorably drawn into the investigation, which – as she will come to discover – has a very personal connection indeed for her…

I’m never quite sure what to make of these sorts of movies – I don’t want to inherently write them all off, because there are some very good examples beyond Saw, which is a series that hangs together surprisingly well, especially considering the number of horror franchises that descend into nonsense. Waz leaps out as an obvious one strong example, and there have been a few other fun and interesting ones like Vile and 13 Sins. But this sort of ‘playful serial killer’ setting up a game for their victims has rather been done to death now. It’d be unfair to say I was bored by Choose – the film is short and taut, and moves at a decent pace – but equally I can’t ever say I was highly invested in the characters or really that shocked by any of the twists in the movie. There is one, but if feels so rushed and half-arsed that it’s hard to really connect with it.

In some ways these are the hardest films to review – even if I hated it that would be a stronger opinion for me to get over here, but I just can’t muster up the strength of feeling one way or the other. Choose didn’t really make much impression on the scene or at the box office, and frankly it didn’t make much of an impression on me. There are a fair few cliches in here, which holds things back a bit, and some of the side performances aren’t all that great either.  It was only about half an hour in that I realised I had actually watched this before, and that’s probably the best summation I can possibly give to this one…

RATING: 4.5/10. It won’t frustrate you, or annoy you, nor will it leave you cowering on the floor in fear of gasping in shock. To most horror fans, Choose is probably a fairly innocuous horror film that focuses more on suggestion than flat-out gore, and might appeal to some of the more squeamish readers around these parts. Although, with that said, if you’re squeamish then you probably haven’t found any great number of films you’ve wanted to check out in the whole history of Film Gutter. I’m sure you can probably choose a better horror movie than this one, though there are probably plenty worse out there – I was just left feeling distinctly meh here, which is probably one of the worst sensations to come away from a film with…