(HORROR) The Tortured - 2009 **

This started off in a promising way, but then progressed into a horrific mixture of Saw and Hostel. A young couple look for payback on the man who kidnapped and murdered their son. They do this by kidnapping him when he is being held in a police car and taking him to the basement of their house where they proceed to torture him to within an inch of his life. Nothing much else happens. Except a really awful ending that was quite upsetting. I liked the build-up at the beginning where the events of the kidnapping unfold etc but actually when you get down to the basics of what happens next it's just plain unpleasant. Erika Christensen is good though but Jesse Metcalfe isn't.

(HORROR) The Theatre Bizarre - 2011 ***

This was ironically one of those films which feels like a nightmare on continuous loop. The film is split up into 6 segments that are told by a terrifying puppet to a young girl who stumbles into what looks like an old and abandoned theatre.
I would say 3 out of the six shorts are suitably weird, bizarre and creepy. The other 3 are just horrible excuses for pointless 'artistic' gore. I like how each segment is directed by an individual director. I will probably watch this again after a suitable cooling off period because right now I'm a bit too disturbed by it all.

(HORROR) The Woman - 2011 ***

This was a really horrible movie. A man captures a feral-like woman in the woods and ties her up in his basement despite her obvious anger and distress. She can barely communicate with anyone which makes it a lot more hard to watch. He's a completely disgusting character, sexually abusive, intimidating, arrogant, violent to his family who all seem to have retreated into a shell-like existence. All except his son, who is developing the same traits as his father, and loving every minute of it. The woman is abused, mentally, physically and sexually by the father, and treated as a laughing stock and sex object by the men. The wife of the man is cowardly, whimpish, and doesn't flinch when he punches her about and pushes her around. The only one that seems to really relate to the feral woman is the young daughter, who when the time comes, is ready to dish out some of her own punishment. I guess this movie's title is ambiguous, because 'The Woman' could actually be any of the female characters. It's got a strong feminist vibe in my opinion with some gore and nausea thown in which is probably actually quite a good idea for a horror film, if the characters were anything other than thoroughly dislikeable.