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MSRP 19.95
RATED Unrated
STUDIO Seminal Films
RUNNING TIME 87 Minutes
SPECIAL FEATURES
• None
The Pitch
When Eva moved into her new apartment she couldn’t imagine the horror that came with it. Within a few days she is taken hostage by a mysterious figure and has her blood drawn for a purpose she will soon find out. Now Eva must fight for her freedom before her abductor can carry out his evil plan.
The Humans
Bobby Boermans (Director)Carolien Spoor, Thijs Romer, Alison Carroll, Jappe Claes, Dragan Bakema
The Nutshell
A low budget foreign entry into the Torture Porn industry, and not a good attempt.
The Lowdown
Horror has so many caveats of what define it and more sub-genres than any other genre. There have been successful films in almost every sub-genre, and for every one of those we have had a minimal of 10 failures. Claustrophobia is one of the ones that don’t quite make it. It gets an A for effort, but ultimately falls short of almost every goal it should have set itself out to obtain. The worst part about it is the listing on IMDB and Amazon, where it is a thriller, yet this movie definitely attempts to mimic Audition or Hostel, both of which are clearly categorized in the torture porn sub-genre of horror.
How much for the apartment with creepy landlord?
The movie begins by establishing some guy is going to have some issues due to exploring an abandoned morgue as a teen with a girl he was hoping to hook up with. She traps him in one of the single body freezers, and then it jumps to present day with the very attractive girl next door, Eva. She’s enrolled in veterinarian school, but is unable to test with animals, making her a conundrum of a character. She moves to a new apartment that has a creepy landlord and a doctor her girlfriend lusts for. Soon Eva has been drugged and held hostage and we begin an hour of torture. Torture mostly experienced on the wrong side of the tv screen.
The plot moved at a decent pace until the abduction, and then the director appears to have been emotionally connected to any idea of torture that could be introduced without having to provide money for special effects. Figuring out the captor would have been simple if they didn’t show you who it was way too fast, removing any sort of mystery. The timing is made worse by no method of escalation. Each series of struggles heighten, then fade out to the point it seems calm and the hits the ceiling only to fade out again.
This was very similar to the experience I had viewing this movie.
The overall story was interesting, and the use of the budget was decent, but the execution of turning paper to video failed miserably. In the hands of a more talented director, this could have been much more interesting, though never much more than a possible movie of the week on the Lifetime channel.
The biggest complaint and turn off I had is that this movie revels in mediocrity. Mediocrity in creativity, mediocrity in concept and most of all mediocrity in the overall story. I felt numb after it was over. Not good, and not bad. It took me a week to write this small review because it wasn’t truly worthy enough to generate a feeling worth talking about. Skip it.
The Package
Cheap artwork with no special features, no trailers and a cheap looking menu. Detracting .5 stars from the already low 1.5 rating.
Stop me if you’ve seen this….. My Bloody Valentine…..errr…….I Know What You Did Last Summer….err…….Single White Female…….err…..Singing in the rain?
Rating: 
Out of a Possible 5 Stars
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