I Watch 'Em So You Don't Have To

MOVIES YOU WATCH BECAUSE OF WHO'S IN THEM EVEN THOUGH THE MOVIE FREAKING SUCKS





Torment (2013) Canada

Have I mentioned I hate home invasion movies? 'You're Next' was an exception, but not a completely successful one. I think this is one of few films that has an honest title 'cause watching this Canadian whine fest was sheer torment for me. It's just another psycho 'family' in animal masks torturing another family. So why did I bother?

Well, the father, Cory, is played by Robin Dunne of the SyFy series (that was good until it got stale) Sanctuary, the mother, Sarah, is played by Katharine Isabelle (GO AMERICAN MARY! YES!!! CAN'T WAIT TO SEE YOU IN SEE NO EVIL 2!), and there's a brief but ineffectual part for Stephen McHattie (who plays in a ton of stuff but I really liked Pontypool) as a gosh-golly-gee sheriff who dies pretty quickly. 

The boy is... just some whiny kid. Just kidding, Peter DaCunha did a good job as poor Liam who has to suffer with his dad's new wife (apparently things just aren't movie worthy unless at least one family member is already dead) as well as being abducted.

Whoops, wrong movie...

So, even though he has FREAKING KATHARINE ISABELLE for a new mother (sorry, she's just too cool - just ask the Soska sisters), he doesn't wanna go to their vacation house that everybody in movies apparently has tucked away somewhere - they must be in the same towns as all the abandoned asylums and prisons and hospitals, 'cause there ain't any near where I live.

Meh, I still liked the other one better...

Okay, this is a scenic place I live in so there are more than a couple of vacation homes here. I just don't own any of 'em.

When the family first gets there, the house is not only broken into but trashed, and it's obvious somebody's been living there. Do they turn and go far, far away from it until the police say it's safe? No - and we shake our heads 'cause we know they've got to do something really stupid or the movie doesn't start. And since it seems to be a "thing" now, the psychos all wear animal masks. That's... a really dumb fashion statement.

And absolutely NO backstory. Not that I wanted any, that would have just made the movie longer, but hey, a small explanation as to why this 'family' of animal heads wants to live in everybody else's house and torture people would have been appre... nah, never mind, it kept the movie shorter, good enough.

Believe it or not this is NOT how he dies...

So capture, scream, get free, run, get captured again, scream, get free, run... shampoo, rinse, repeat. Over and over until the end of the movie when Dunne gets shot and it's bye bye daddy. Isabelle saves the kid and they get magic blankets from the paramedic who's BY HIMSELF TO TRANSPORT ONE OF THE PSYCHOS because apparently that's how they do things in Canada, eh?

Same with the police - McHattie was by himself (which was fortunate since he was duct taped to the driver's seat of his car (don't even ask me how they managed that) and got blown up. So at the end they send ONE cop to transport another of the psychos but wait - one they thought was dead rescues her because hey, she's not cuffed, there's no cage in the car, and apparently anyone can open the doors. Canada's a real secure place, eh?

Sorry about that. It wasn't Canada that sucked here, it was this movie and that's all I've got to say about that. Now I've got a review to do about ANOTHER movie about Hitler's head in a jar so... I'm a little raw right now. Heil Canada!