UK Premiere

Short Synopsis:

The intimate and terrifying account of an American businessman's plight at the hands of terrorists who will go to unimaginable lengths to make their voices heard.

Review:

“No one is amused by the suffering of others,” claims American business man Eliott Gast (Jason Behr) in this shocking horror thriller. Sadly for Eliott, he is very wrong. Kidnapped on a business trip to Europe he wakes up to find himself held prisoner in a deceptively comfortable room with only a few CCTV cameras for  company.

His captors soon reveal themselves as terrorists who plan to punish Eliott for the ‘crimes’ committed by the US government. Over the next forty days he is subjected to a series of agonising tortures, the nature of which lend the film’s title a gruesome double- meaning. His appalling ordeal is broadcast over the internet in exchange for donations from viewers who in turn get to chose his fate. Their decisions do not exactly reinforce one’s faith in human nature.

As he becomes increasingly incapacitated, Eliott’s attempts to escape become more desperate and his only hope seems to be Nim  (Emma Catherwood), one of his less enthusiastic tormentors. But can she be trusted and is Eliott really as innocent as he seems?

Fans of ‘Grand Guignol’ style films such as ‘Saw’ and ‘Hostel’ will find plenty to thrill them here. The torture scenes are horribly graphic yet ingeniously creative and the director certainly knows how to build up the tension. Behind all the blood and gore the film offers up an interesting moral quandary as to how far one should go in presenting human suffering as entertainment and to what extent audiences are themselves culpable.

AD