Captivity in October
22 August 2007

The current Torture Porn cycle has proved controversial by its very nature, although the quality of some of the films has been less than thrilling. The most recent king of the controversy tree is Captivity, curtly dismissed in The Guardian as "a very sorry and unthrilling piece of nastiness" and by Variety as "a thoroughly nasty piece of work." A pattern seems to be emerging here.

What has particularly appalled some critics is that it was helmed by none other than Roland Joffé, the twice Oscar nominated director of prestige projects The Killing Fields and The Mission, who in the time-honoured tradition has been accused to sinking to a depraved low for messing with the horror genre. That Joffé's first cut was more psychologically based and that most of the violence was added at studio insistence (and then cut back for the US and UK releases) is neither here nor there, of course. Even before it's release the film was stirring up trouble thanks to a now notorious billboard campaign that was eventually pulled due to a hoard of protests (you can read the details here).

Captivity tells the story of top cover girl and fashion model, Jennifer Tree (Elisha Cuthbert) who has it all - beauty, fame, money and power. Her face appears on covers of hundreds of magazines. At the top of her game, Jennifer is America's sweetheart. She is loved and adored: everyone wants her. But someone out there has been watching and waiting. Out alone at a charity event in New York, Jennifer is drugged and taken. Held captive in a cell, she is then subjected to a terrifying, life-threatening ordeal that could only be conceived by a twisted, sadistic mind.

If the Hostel films rocked your boat then you're sure to want to catch Captivity, so make a date in your diary for 29th October 2007 when it's released on UK DVD by Optimum. The included extras are an Elisha Cuthbert interview, an 11 minute making-of featurette, deleted scenes and alternative endings. The RRP is set at £17.99.