Torment is a Canadian horror film directed by Jordan Baker. The plot sees newlyweds Sarah (Katherine Isabelle) and Cory (Robin Dunne) go to Cory’s country house with his 7-year-old son for some family time. However, when they get there, they see that something is wrong, something is deeply wrong, and it only gets worse from there as masked killers begin to plague the family.
There is nothing fundamentally wrong with this film, you know it is a promising film when the review starts off like that, but you have seen it a million times before and done better. This film as I affectionately named it is The Strangers without any of the charm, or a dumb version of You’re Next.
Everything that happens in this film is predictable and lazy, the scares, the kills, the story structure it is all just aggressively average. The only praise I can afford this film is that the killers look cool, their masks which are made out of the sons stuffed toys, why who knows, look frightening and I will give them credit for that.
However, that is where the compliments end.
The son in this film is the worst, yes, it is easy to go on about how terrible child actors are, so I won’t do it too much, but I don’t think the issues with the character were the young actor’s fault. The issues with the character are that he is intensely unlikable, I get that his mum died and in his own way he feels like Sarah is replacing his mum, but the way he talks to Sarah the things he says, he could easily be the villain of the film. I was waiting for the moment at the end of the film where he defected to the psycho family, but sadly they went with a soppier ending.
Another issue I have with this film is that it has a fascination with it’s leading lady, to a pervy uncomfortable degree, in the beginning especially Sarah is either coming out of the shower or in the throws of sex with her husband. It does not feel done with any intention other than to objectify the lead actress and it makes you feel dirty watching it.
Overall, this film is just dull, predictable and incapable of offering anything new. It doesn’t seem to understand human interaction, or not to be creepy either, so yeah don’t watch this.
Pros.
The masks are cool.
Cons.
It is repetitive.
It is played out.
The kid wants his step mum dead and behaves in a way no one would.
It is creepy and pervy.
1/5.
Reviewed by Luke
Another Millennial Reviewer 