Dec 25, 2024

The Torturer (2005)



The tagline says "Saw Meets Fahrenheit 9/11".. what? I absolutely hate the torture porn movies like Saw and Hostel which were big around this time. But it's by Lamberto Bava, who can make some good stuff; Delirium was great - but that was almost twenty years before this film. Let's see if he's still got it.














































CHARACTERS
RATING: ★★★★★★★☆☆☆ 7/10

REVIEW: [12/24/19] I actually think this would have made an excellent Italian horror film had it been made in the seventies or eighties. It suffers from the unfortunate trappings of the times: (1) digital just makes everything look less artful and without any style, (2) the metal soundtrack is so common of the time but so shitty compared to decades past, and (3) the torture porn mentality which erases any sense of the erotic from the sleaze, rending the sleaze just flat and gross. But picturing it made in 1975 or 1985, you'd have a groovy giallo score, or a fun eighties score which would probably be out on vinyl now. You'd have the girls still getting naked and you'd have a sense of style, which digital just completely evaporates. So many straight-to-streaming horror films get it wrong - overdoing everything in an attempt to be edgy and horrifying. Bava doesn't fall for these traps, and does the best one can do when making a horror film in 2005, and I must say I was genuinely impressed.

SECOND SPIN: [12/25/24] Not much more can be said: it looks good, doesn't shy away from the violence and nudity, and is a solid film overall if you like this sorta thing. And at VZ1 we like this sorta thing.

SYNOPSIS

Ginette (Elena Bouryka) is an actress auditioning for a part. An ominous voice from the theater, the director, asks her creepy questions and has take her dress off and crawl on all fours. Being a desperate actress, she obediently does so. On the ground she sees an earring (which will be important later). After the audition is over, she meets the eccentric director Alex Scerba (Simone Corrente), who gets into a fight with his father Moscale (Emilio De Marchi), the producer. Moscale is tired of his weird, pervy bullshit filmmaking. Alex has dinner with the young starlet, Ginette. There are like a hundred red flags that he's a psychopath that she's clearly not picking up on. They go to his apartment. Being perhaps a bit overly playful, she closes the bathroom door on him. Alex freaks out - literally punching through the door. They have rough sex, where he basically is strangling her. Alex keeps seeing this toy car. He really thinks it's in the room. He keeps flashing back to images of a woman being tortured. We will learn later that this is actually Marzia (Antonella Salvucci), Ginette's actress friend who interviewed for this role before her. After this wildly aggressive sexual encounter, and Alex busting through the bathroom door, and Alex screaming about a toy car apparition... Giuette still stays with this guy. In fact, she goes with him to stay at his family's estate. Carla Sherba (Carla Cassola) is his profoundly creepy and insane mother. Sehare (María Blanco-Fafián) is her home nurse and maid. They're barely in the house five minutes before Alex is back to ripping off Ginette's clothes and having hostile sex with her. He keeps seeing this old toy car.

The film takes a recess from Ginette's story, and is back to the theater, where another actress, Cindy (Valeria Cramerotti) is auditioning. She's questioned, as before, by a faceless and ominous director hidden in the theater seats. After her audition, she is told to wait backstage. There, she meets two other actresses who are also waiting. Terry (Martina Micozzi) and Monica (Eleonora Sannibale). Terry is called to the stage for her audition. This is actress Martina Micozzi's only IMDb credit. We see the figure of the director wearing a head lamp. The director asks her to take off her clothes and then climb into a small wooden box. Terry agrees to get in the box. The director then closes the lid and starts pounding nails through the lid. But Terry isn't harmed. She apologizes for screaming and promises not to lose control again. Meanwhile backstage, Monica is growing antsy. The door is locked, and she starts to feel like a hostage. Looking for an exit, she climbs a winding staircase.

Meanwhile, at Alex's family estate, things have hit the fan. Ginette finds an earring matching the one she found on the stage - and it's her friend Marzia's. Also, she finds other clues to Alex's murderous tendencies (as if she already hadn't been presented with a million other red flags!). She tries to escape the mansion in the pouring rain. She hears a muffled screaming, and it's coming from the ground. Ginette sweeps away the debris, and finds a wooden trap door. She opens it and finds her friend Marzia inside! Marzia dies in her arms. Ginette notices cords and a video camera wrapped around her.

Back at the theater, Monica and Cindy continue to stress about being trapped back stage, and wonder what's taking Terry so long. The director finally calls Monica and Cindy to the audition. He asks Monica to tie Cindy to a cross. Then, Monica is told to rip open Cindy's blouse. Being the desperate starlets that they are, they comply. Then, in a truly horrifying moment, the director in the headlamp suddenly starts running at them, and hits Monica over the head with a baseball bat. Monica is tied to a wheel and whipped. [Actress Eleonora Sannibale was a regular on the Italian TV show "Mai dire Domenica"] As this wheel is spun around the director lashes her with a cat o' nine tails. The camera focuses on a really explicit look at Eleonora Sannibale's crotch. [I'm thinking Eleonora Sannibale must have not enjoyed this, because she would never act again.] Remember Sehare (María Blanco-Fafián) the maid. She's walking around in the dark and gets stabbed. [This seems a tad pointless because the maid is really never developed into a solid character, the scene doesn't provide any gore or sleaze, and, worse, it conflicts with the timeline, as the killer director is supposedly elsewhere torturing the actresses.] Ginette comes upon the body of the maid and searches around. She finds this to actually be a back passageway to the theater. She climbs the same winding staircase. Ginette finds a control room with video monitors - and sees the actresses being tortured on camera. She's knocked out with a baseball bat.

Ginette is placed in a cell in the floor which is being filled with water. Alex comes on the scene, and we find he isn't the one doing this - it's Moscale (Emilio De Marchi). Remember him from the start of the movie? Moscale explains that he wants to create snuff films - his motivation for doing so is... not quite clear other than he's crazy. Moscale goes to each girl and we can see they're still barely breathing - not quite dead. Alex sees his true love, Ginette, on the video monitor being drowned in her cell. They get into a big fight - Moscale is ultimately killed by the crazy mother. Carla. Alex saves Ginette, they embrace - but it's not made clear whether Monica, Terry and Cindy survive. Oh, well. THE END

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