The Horror Show
Torment
by Jordan Barker
Imagine the movies “You’re Next”, “The Hills Have Eyes”, and “The Strangers” all mish mashed into one film. It would basically become a film without purpose and the underlying theme would be unclear.
I have mixed feelings about the movie “Torment.” It wasn’t terrible, but it definitely wasn’t a great film either. It was simply mediocre. It opens with a Nietzsche quote and is supposed to be this super creepy film about “family” or whatever, but it never really gets to where it wants to go. The film wants to take us on a scary ride, but yeah, it doesn’t know where it’s going.
So let me introduce you to the film. The movie begins in the country with a small farmhouse and a quiet family eating dinner. Their German Shepherd is outside barking like crazy and then suddenly stops when the lady of the house goes out to see what all the fuss is about. And then, as you might have already been able to guess, some people with some creepy animal masks on murder the family.
Enter Cory and his new wife Sarah. They’re taking Cory’s son Liam on a getaway to the countryside. We learn through some sappy scenes that Liam doesn’t really like Sarah all that much because he feels like she doesn’t belong in their family since his mom died. So we have this annoying kid that hates his stepmom and his dealing with grief in his own way and a newlywed couple that just want to be happy.
Now they’re in Cory’s “country home” and this house just so happens to be neighboring the farm house where the other family was just killed. Cory and Sarah discover that somebody has been squatting in their home since nobody has been there in quite some time. Cory calls the cops, the cop is an asshole and isn’t helpful at all, and then you can imagine what happens next.
“Torment” becomes the full-fledged home invasion horror film you anticipated it to be. In this case, the trailer was not misleading, I knew what I was watching, I knew what to expect. I just maybe hoped for a little more originality. There were far too many clichés rolled into one film. The creepy redneck family with the animal masks, the rich white family with the random house in the countryside that they never go to, the pointless running through the woods and the seemingly endless torture scenes that don’t really fit into the plot and are only there for shock and gore. I feel like they could have picked ONE and stuck with it. But I get what the director and writers were trying to do with this film; they wanted “Torment” to have this deep and meaningful plotline, but somewhere along the way, all the meaning got lost.
I won’t give anything away, but I see what the killers were trying to do with this family and with their torture, I just feel like it could have been handled differently and in a much more original manner. The acting was not bad but I did feel like if Sarah (Katharine Isabelle) said Cory’s name one more time I was going to jump into my television and punch her. She almost overacted during the intense “horror” scenes.
The ending is predictable and pretty anticlimactic. Am I mad about it? No, I really don’t care about the film enough to be disappointed. Like I said, I knew what to expect. So if you’re in the mood for a creepy home invasion flick with redneck killers, then check out “Torment” to kill some time and add another notch to your horror movie belt.
Stevie Kopas, HMS
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