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. TODAY ON THE GINGER NUTS OF HORROR WEBSITE CALEB WATCHES MOVIES: HEREDITARY THE HEART AND SOUL OF EXTREME HORROR MOVIE REVIEWS |
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