Caged (2010)

One of my all time favorites.

good back-story, and good acting

Don't listen to the Hype. It's awful

Blistering performances.

Darn it. I blame the French. I do, I do, I do. They create "events" like 'Irreversible', 'Baise Moi', 'Martyrs' and 'Inside' then turn around and release 'Captifs' onto the movie-going market. Well, it's not a high school production; it's just that it's not in the same class as the others I mentioned.The reason for that is the originality in the film - there isn't any. You've seen all these scene before in one movie or another. And, of course, that means you know what's coming. For instance, you knew the injured doctor was going to stop running from the dogs and tell the ladies that he's too weak so they need to continue running and just leave him behind.And, I must say, this is some strong heroine. Lying prone and saddled to a gurney, she grabs a scalpel and kills a man by stabbing him once in his neck using her left hand. Maybe that's believable, but finding a sharp object in the corn field strong enough to jab through another assailant's leather boots to make him scream and drop his gun seems a little unbelievable.Also, I was shouting for her to "STEP BACK!" because she was standing way too close to a landmine that was about to be triggered by the snarling dogs. And lo and behold, she survived the blast - from three feet away. Sure. Okay. Whatever you say, director.Oh, and remind me: next time I'm being chased through a thick corn field by a man with a shotgun, make sure I yell out so he'll know where to find me. I wouldn't want him to search in vain, you know.

What could be worse than being cut open and having your internal organs removed while you're still alive? Well, in Caged, which I saw with English subtitles, it takes it to an extreme.When a French medical team ends up abducted and locked up, one of them, Samir, is dragged away, and it turns out that the team has been abducted for illegal organ harvesting.This type of plot has been used countless times, but in most movies organ harvesting is never so graphic. Caged shows it in great detail, making it a truly disturbing and scary movie to view, which was their intention, and they pulled it off extremely well. The acting wasn't very good and the soundtrack was pretty boring, but if you want to see a scary movie, look no further than this.

I am not going to go deep into the movie, but it was "OK". Recently in horror or thriller movies, housewives know how to use knives or to hit someone to dead, ordinary people defeat trained soldiers and on and on and I hate the lack of credibility. This movie was different. First: the acting was quite decent and second: Everything was justified, for once. So at least I didn't see fake heroes or people that seems immortal. Carole, the main character, has a very well justified phobia for dogs, that will make things complicated for her later on in the movie. It is justified how much she loves and cares about children, so when she tries to rescue Ana, the little girl, she is not a super hero, but that's what she does. She is a doctor, so she knows how to use surgery knives in a very precise way, and it is not pure good luck that she does what she does later on in the movie with a surgery knife. Besides that, the movie doesn't give anything new. Organ traffickers, innocent people being killed, and of course, only one character (the main one, and the weakest-Carole-) and a little girl survive. Why can't they ever work together to kill the bad guys and so all of the good ones (or most of them) survive? It is a good movie if you just wanna jump on your chair a couple of times, and get a little bit uncomfortable (due to the organs) and scared, but yet, not much. For a Sunday night when there is nothing to do, it is perfect.

Well, OK... been there, done that. Three doctors stationed for humanitarian help in Kosovo take a detour and get lost (Yawn!) and then captured by what at first appears to be militia but then turn out to be some evil thugs harvesting organs for a living. Pretty Hostel and Severance but way too serious and uninspired. From the wannabe opening scene introducing a childhood trauma of the female lead to the following arm wrestling scene in a pub you know everything that is coming up and its unfolding in most clichéd ways. Like in nearly all latest french horror movies the heroine saves the day and kicks some ass. Anyway... ass-kicking is not the point here. Most of the movie tries to create a threatening atmosphere of the isolation of the captives in their cells. The evil doc is not missing, checking their heartbeat regularly and caring for their wounds but every thug is of course most evil just waiting for a call to cut out organs (grotesquely starting with they eyes) and make some cash. For two thirds of the movie nearly nothing is happening. You are just watching the captives in their cells growing desperate and plotting botched escapes. Anyway... then you get what you have been waiting for in most uninspired ways (except for one creative kill and a nice hide and seek in a corn field). Movie over. I see no character development in this movie, I see no creativity in this movie, I see no plot in this movie and I see just too little atmosphere and thrill in it to carry it to the end. For the serious tone of the movie its pretty annoying to have the characters act out in most dumb horror clichés by making noise and forgetting to keep the weapons lying around everywhere... At least there was no cellphone without signal here! All in all a big let down amongst all the great horror movies from France in the last years. Just as big a letdown as Vertige last year which at least had some stunning mountain shots and suspenseful mountain climbing scenes.