Katheryn Winnick stars in this neat little thriller about a serial killer who forces his victims to make a series of sickening choices. Unfairly dubbed a rip-off of Saw, I was pleasantly surprised by this.
For a low budget production this really has a lot going for it, namely the cast, which includes Kevin Pollak and Bruce Dern. The opening is great, the titles sequence is cool and the score is impressive too. I also really liked the effects work and the nastiness of the script.
Don’t get me wrong, the film has flaws. For starters, if you watch the trailer you’ll notice it has obviously been butchered which results in a scant running time and a terrible WTF? ending.
Some of the talent is completely wasted here, case in point being Cabin Fever 2 star Alexi Wasser’s character Marni, who made a good impression and then was never seen again. Her character had all of the hallmarks of one of those people you hope doesn’t get killed and does like Rachel in Halloween 5 or Helen in I Know What You Did Last Summer which would have made a great impact but never got anywhere close.
The same goes for the rest of leading lady Fiona’s friends who she basically treats like shit until she needs something. They’re all just there to help her and yell things like ‘see you tonight at the bar bitch’ which I admit I’ve paraphrased. It would have been so awesome to force her to choose between the three of them…I already know which one I’d like to die! Talk about a wasted opportunity.
Admittedly, if I started to linger too much on what I didn’t like about it, I’d end up enjoying it a lot less.
OVERALL SUMMARY
As it stands, this was an enjoyable film that owes much more to the likes of Seven and Untraceable than it does to Saw. It’s definitely worth a rent and if you don’t expect too much you should find this to be a decent watch.
