As a sub-genre, captivity horror is one which lends itself to low budgets and sinks or swims based on the script and acting. Unfortunately, all too often directors rely on exploitation and body horror to provide thrills (Hostel anyone?). However, films such as the SAW and Cube series demonstrate what can be achieved with a bit of imagination. In Steven Shainberg’s new film Rupture, Noomi Rapace finds herself a little tied up.
After dropping her son (Percy Hynes White) off with his dad, Renee (Rapace) is snatched from her car, bound and gagged and driven-off in the back of a van. She wakes up strapped to a table in what looks like a strange hospital room. Her captors like the smell and look of her skin, pump her full of weird coloured liquid and keep telling Renee that it’s ‘up to her’. Scared and confused, she desperately tries to escape, but soon learns she’s not alone.
Shainberg, who most notably directed the fantastic S&M drama Secretary, has made a distinctly strange and opaque film in Rupture. Rapace, accent aside, does a good job of holding things together. There’s a swirl of mysterious ideas, metaphors and possibilities whirring around without Rupture ever settling on one driving focus. Rupture is an odd, yet entertaining, thriller which marries mystery and horror tropes to keep you guessing long after the credits have rolled.
Rupture is out in cinemas from Friday.
No Comment