I haven't seen this and don't know if I will--the reviews have been across-the-board terrible and even fans at the horror sites are trashing it. I have to admit there's a train-wreck fascination in seeing what exactly Roland Joffe is doing associated with a film like this, though in his defense, it was sent back for reshoots to amp up the "torture porn" angle (was he even still involved at that point, or did Courtney Solomon take over?). I'd imagine Joffe made an at least somewhat respectable psychological thriller, which of course, wasn't sufficient.

Given the controversy surrounding this film's advertising a few months back, I was shocked to see it just dumped in theaters. In the local newspaper here, there wasn't even a small ad in the movie section. You wouldn't even know it was playing unless you looked at the theater listings to see the showtimes. Is it like that elsewhere? Is Solomon setting this up to fail or is he foolishly imagining some grass-roots word-of-mouth sleeper?

Has this subgenre run its course?

And again, without seeing the film, I ask: Roland Joffe. How? Why?

I think so. The review at Dread Central says, "If torture porn isn’t already dead, rest assured it is now."

http://www.dreadcentral.com/index.php?name...content&id=1528

As for the Joffe question, who knows? I guess one could ask the same thing about screenwriter Larry Cohen. Word is he had a clever little script that got molded into a SAW/HOSTEL-type film.

As an aside, what I find so strange about the whole CAPTIVITY ad situation is how people reacted so violently to it. In a recent Fangoria, Eli Roth called the ad campaign disgusting and vile. Yet HOSTEL PART II's main poster features a girl hanging upside down, crying, and with snot dripping out of her nose. How is that any better?

It bombed horribly yesterday, taking in only $515,000 in 1050 theaters. It opened at no. 11. Ouch!

Still, something is calling me...I haven't seen a single film in the "torture porn blah blah" genre, but any film that Larry Cohen wrote almost certainly has a thought in its head; it may be a lousy film, but he's a guy with ideas, and I suspect that if anything beyond a paycheck got Roland Joffe to commit, it was Cohen's script, which apparently does have some level of a celebrities-being-captive-to-their-fame theme to it...

All right, it's probably terrible. But on a film board, I figure any chance this film has for an interesting discussion is from the Cohen angle; assuming I'm not alone in my love for Cohen, anyway. I'm probably seeing it Monday, and will report from said angle what I think is going on...

This movie was scheduled for May release (billboards all across L.A.). It was then delayed until a June release (a million revised billboards all across L.A.). It was then changed to a July 13th release (a new million revised billboards across town). The amount Lions Gate spent on P&A has to be outrageous on this thing. Sounds like a financial disaster.

7% at Rotten Tomatoes for CAPTIVITY

You're sure there's nothing else interesting you've yet to see? :D

Critics seem to be generally baffled as to what Joffe or Cohen had to do with this flick. Yer a brave man, lad!

You aren't alone in your love for Cohen. I will probably check it out when it hits video, solely to see if he did anything interesting. Of course, I've said that about Cohen's PHONE BOOTH and CELLULAR and still haven't seen those. Would anybody recommend them? I've stayed away because I sense studio trouble (and I have a general allergic reaction to Schumacher).

PHONE BOOTH and CELLULAR are pretty disposable timekillers if there's nothing else on. I probably enjoyed CELLULAR a little more.

I love Cohen as much as anyone else does, but when we've seen him associated with big, mainstream projects in recent years, his connections always seem tenuous. For instance, he had almost nothing to do with the PHONE BOOTH that ended up getting made. I remember reading that the extent of his involvement was the initial script that he pitched to Hitchcock shortly before the Master of Suspense passed on. It was totally reworked but he got credit for the initial idea. I think CELLULAR, basically a higher-tech version of the instantly-dated PHONE BOOTH, was the same way.

Now, we have CAPTIVITY, which again, seems like something that got reworked and revamped and bears little if any resemblance to the script Cohen wrote. Sure, Larry appeared at the Fangoria premiere for CAPTIVITY, which is more than Roland Joffe or Elisha Cuthbert did, but an indie fringe guy like Cohen is obviously gonna jump at some big-time attention, and I'm sure the paycheck (probably not a ton, but more than he'd get for another IT'S ALIVE sequel or a MASTERS OF HORROR outing) made him happy as well, even if the work wasn't even remotely his.

I haven't seen PHONE BOOTH, but I remember CELLULAR as being a pretty clever little B movie.

doug

I thought from interviews he did that Cohen was pretty actively involved in PHONE BOOTH -- it was the script that made him "hot" and at least employable again in Hollywood -- he certainly didn't run away from that one or CELLULAR in interviews, (which I think was his response to "Hey! Come up with another PHONE BOOTH!")....while everyone loves a paycheck, I never assumed Cohen has had any money issues -- before he ever got well known as a cult filmmaker, he was a successful (and wealthy, see the L.A. house-with-a-pool he shot in frequently in BONE, HELL UP IN HARLEM, etc. --- it was his!) as a television writer, creator and producer. I have no reason to think the "sick" idea of CAPTIVITY isn't his to blame for, he wrote that straight-to-video one where the woman is locked up in the cabin by the guy who doesn't want her to abort her baby -- INVASION OF PRIVACY, is that the title? Starring the guy from THAT THING YOU DO and Naomi Campbell, methinks...anyway, CAPTIVITY sounds like he's actually reusing THAT idea at some level,

I think the ridiculously offensive advertising is what really turned people especially against this one more than anything else....

This is pretty funny how everyone involved with the poster backs out from responsibility. Wrong files to the printer :lol: These are the people behind the movies of today.
http://www.askmepc.com/page17.html

and the movie contains "GRIZZLY IMAGES" as warned in the ratings banner. Hilarious!

Grizzly CAPTIVITY

CNN on the death of torture porn.

Favorite quote:

SPOILERS, if anyone cares.


Got the unrated DVD from Netflix, and just finished watching it.

Well, it IS terrible in every way. It's not scary, it's not suspenseful, it's just depressing and ultimately idiotic. The actors are awful--Daniel Gillies is such a bad actor that he can't even shout "F--k you!!" convincingly. If they aren't already, when people go back and look at what signaled the death of the torture-porn subgenre, they'll no doubt look right here as the point where it hit bottom.

I brought it up before, but the whole issue of Roland Joffe directing is what I find most interesting. I, like a lot of people, assumed that the suspense thriller Joffe shot in Russia in 2005 was retooled and largely reshot by After Dark CEO Courtney Solomon in 2007. It was largely assumed that Solomon more or less pulled a CALIGULA on Joffe and took the film away from him. The film is amateur night from beginning to end, barely even worthy of direct-to-DVD status. But something interesting happened with the release of CAPTIVITY on DVD.

First off, there's a "Making Of," which appears to have been filmed during the 2005 shoot in Russia. It includes several shots that are not in the version released in the US or on this DVD. Joffe talks at length about the (alleged) thematic complexity of the final scene, and it's a scene that's not in the film that viewers of the DVD just watched.

But wait! There's a second behind-the-scenes doc, titled "Captivity: On the Set," and a caption at the opening says that this footage was shot during the 2007 reshoots in Glendale, CA. "Hmm," I thought, "Now we'll see Courtney Solomon calling the shots."

Uh...hold on. That's Roland Joffe overseeing the 2007 reshoots! And is that the Oscar-nominated director blocking the controversial scene of Elisha Cuthbert being forcefed a Smoothie of human body parts? And is that Joffe directing the scene of the forced tooth extraction? And the scene of the girl strapped down under a shower of acid? All of these over-the-top, disgusting changes that were made to Joffe's psychological thriller were shot by Joffe himself? Unless my eyes deceive me, yes, they were.

It seems this second documentary is included for no other reason than to prove Joffe was onboard the whole time. Even if the changes were mandated by the distributor after test screenings, he still directed the reshoots. I'm sure there's more to the story, and there's probably a book that can be written about the whole CAPTIVITY debacle, and I'm not defending Joffe because after all, he did direct the 1995 version of THE SCARLET LETTER. But, much to my shock and dismay, even in this incarnation, CAPTIVITY was, and is, "A Film by Roland Joffe," and this is the lowest I've seen a respectable filmmaker sink in quite some time.

Anyone who has ever seen the execrable DUNGEONS & DRAGONS knows that Solomon should never be allowed anywhere near a film set.

I'm assuming based on the rest of the tone that this isn't as awesome as I'm picturing it.

I dunno. I suppose everyone else thinks I'm crazy, but I'm picturing someone grinding up body parts and chattering away, "The marrow is like the base, it's what keeps the drink thick." Putting ice in and offering supplements like powdered bee pollen and busily explaining the benefits for the hair and skin...

Because I'd frankly sit through a pretty lousy movie to see that!