The Pink Cloud (2021)
Toxic Cloud
Brazilian film that becomes an allegory for Covid lockdown as a toxic cloud forces people to remain indoors for years at a time
Imprisonment Thrillers
This refers to thrillers where someone is held prisoner by a captor. The drama of the story centers around their attempts to escape from confinement, where suspense rides a rollercoaster around the building up of hopes and seeing them dashed.
There have been a number of films about people imprisoned by psychos, serial killers and backwoods hicks. A popular variant came during the Torture Porn fad where people were imprisoned in locked rooms and forced to participate in cruel and sadistic games.
Of more recent has been the Conceptual Containment Thriller, which seeks to confine a person or persons in as small a place as possible – a coffin, an elevator, a tree, a tent, a phone booth – for the duration of the show.
The topic is discussed in more depth in the essay Imprisonment Thrillers
Dread (2009)
Clive Barker Adaptation/Experiment in Fear
Clive Barker adaptation about a disturbed university researcher who pushes an experiment into people’s fears to extremes. This takes some time to start going anywhere but does eventually deliver the horrific goods
Serpent (2017)
Couple Trapped in a Tent with a Deadly Snake
South African thriller that borrows much of its premise from Buried as a married couple camping in a remote gorge are trapped inside their tent with a deadly snake – only for secrets in the marriage to prove just as deadly
The Beguiled (2017)
Southern Gothic
Sofia Coppola’s remake of the 1971 Clint Eastwood film. The original was a work of brooding Southern Gothic of repressed sexual tensions; Sofia seems more interested in making a costume drama that is a stretch to call a horror story any longer
Death’s Roulette (2023)
Imprisonment Thriller
A Mexican-made variant on one of the Saw films where a group of diverse people are locked into a room and must select one of their number to die otherwise everybody will be killed
Moksha – Or The World and I, How Does That Work? (2012)
Man Chained Up/Existential Parable
Imagine a weird mix between the basic premise of Saw and Waiting for Godot. A South Korean film about a man inexplicably chained up in a park that is less interested in his escape than it becomes a surreal existential allegory for life
The Collector (1965)
Obsession and Abduction/Comedy-Thriller
Adaptation of a John Fowles novel where shy Terence Stamp makes Samantha Eggar a prisoner so she can love him. Made not long after Psycho, this tries similar but becomes more of an Odd Couple comedy
Containment (2015)
Plague Outbreak
A variant on the plague outbreak drama with a difference. It begins with a man waking to go about his workday only to find he has been glued into his apartment and the film logically expands out from there
Glorious (2022)
Man Trapped in a Bathroom with a Deity
Film with a literally off-the-wall premise in which Ryan Kwanten is trapped in a rest stop bathroom with a Lovecraftian deity that speaks through a glory hole in the next stall
Otis (2008)
Psycho Film
Film about a big overweight psycho who abducts girls and makes them enact a fantasy of being a cheerleader. Produced by one of the directors of The Blair Witch Project
Perfect Skin (2018)
Girl Imprisoned by a Psycho Tattooist
Thriller in which a girl is abducted and imprisoned by a mad tattooist who wants to use her body as a work of art
Paranoid (2000)
Imprisonment Psycho-Thriller
Psycho-thriller in which Jessica Alba finds herself drugged and then held a captive prisoner by Iain Glen
The Owners (2020)
Home Invasion/Sinister Occupants
Maisie Williams and an aging Sylvester McCoy in a film about house burglars who break in to a home to discover sinister things afoot
Paradise Hills (2019)
Future Re-Education Facility
Nacho Vigalondo scripted film that seems like a mix between a girls’ boarding school story and an SF film like The Island, all directed with amazingly over-ornamented costuming and design scheme not seen on screen since at least The Cell
Saw X (2023)
Saw Sequel
The Saw series is back and this has been getting some of the best reviews of any entries in the series
Pig (2010)
Backwoods Brutality
A Backwoods Brutality entry from the increasingly underrated Adam Mason where the entire film has been shot in a single take. Often brutal but much of the film seems monotonous with indulgent improvised performances allowed to dominate the show
Shuttle (2008)
Abduction Aboard an Airport Shuttle
A group of people taking a shuttle back from the airport are taken abducted and made prisoner. One of what this author has termed Conceptual Containment Thrillers, which confine the action to a single locale, this has some twists and turns but does nothing remarkable with the idea
247°F (2011)
Characters Trapped Inside a Sauna
In the vein of films like Phone Booth and Buried, a Conceptual Containment Thriller with a group of people trapped in a sauna with the heat being turned up. From the director who later made Landmine Goes Click in this same vein
200 Degrees (2017)
Man Locked in a Room as the Temperature is Turned Up
A thriller in the vein of films such as Phone Booth and especially Buried with Eric Balfour locked in a room in a warehouse with heat lamps that are slowly turning the temperature up to the title level. This ratchets suspense well, Balfour is good but things fall apart at the denouement
To Your Last Death (2019)
Animation/Brutal Survival in an Office Building/Alien Game
Animated film that is gore-drenched and certainly not for children. Imagine The Belko Experiment conceived as a videogame where the heroine has to survive an office of people trying to kill her while aliens bet on the outcome
Till Death (2021)
Wife Handcuffed to Her Husband’s Corpse
This had me sold from its one sentence description – Megan Fox is a wife trying to escape hired killers while handcuffed to her husband’s corpse
Tau (2018)
Imprisoned Woman Befriends an A.I.
This comes with an intriguing central premise – a woman is imprisoned in the house of a mad tech genius where her only hope of escape is befriending his home security A.I. that is hungry for input about the world. An interesting idea alas doesn’t carry it past an ill-informed idea of how an A.I. would behave
The Tank (2017)
NASA Environmental Habitat Drama
Thriller set around a NASA habitat built for future Mars exploration in the Arctic where the team is torn apart by the isolation and mental instability of team members. There is nothing here that holds you particularly gripped.
Stuck (2007)
True Crime/Hit and Run Victim Trapped in a Car Windscreen
Stuart Gordon, the cult director of Re-Animator, makes a film based on a bizarre true incident where a woman ran a homeless man down and drove home with him still impacted through the windshield of her car
The Strange World of Coffin Joe (1968)
Horror Anthology
Brazil’s Jose Mojica Marins became a cult figure for his Coffin Joe films; this is an anthology sold under the Coffin Joe banner. Without the Coffin Joe presence, all we have is a series of not very well directed pieces that linger on perversity, although the final segment does stand out memorably
The Steam Experiment (2009)
Imprisonment Thriller
This offers one of the more original twists on the Saw set-up – Val Kilmer plays a professor who imprisons a group of people in a steam room slowly turning the temperature up as a protest against global warming.
Spare Parts (2020)
Girl Punk Band Become Gladiators with Weapons Attachments
I was sold from the point of reading the premise where an all-girl punk band is abducted, surgically given weapons attachments and forced to fight in an arena
Shut In (2022)
Woman Imprisoned in a Pantry by Her Ex
An imprisonment thriller where a woman is nailed into a pantry by her abusive ex
The Platform 2 (2024)
Allegorical Prison of Multiple Levels
The Platform offered a striking allegory with a prison where a banquet table of food moved down 300 levels each day. This is a sequel
Shadow Puppets (2007)
Mysterious Labyrinth/Conceptual Breakthrough
A conceptual puzzle film – people wake up in a facility with no memory of who they are – reminiscent of Cube with the smoke monsters from Lost thrown in. Unfortunately, this is too low-budget to create much mystery and the big reveal is not a terribly interesting one
The Seasoning House (2012)
East European Sex Slavery
This starts out as a socially conscious drama about East European sex slavery. As directed by a makeup effects artist, the film seems to tepidly avoid the raw and brutal impact the material holds, before finally revealing its true nature as an imprisonment and revenge horror
Saw VI (2009)
Killer's Sadistic Games
Sixth time around and the backstory is starting to become so excessively complicated it is hard to follow what is going on. All the gruesome torturings now seem passe, although this does redeem itself somewhat in making a few black digs at the medical health industry
Saw V (2008)
Killer's Sadistic Games
Fifth of the Saw films. By now the series has developed such a complicated backstory it is difficult following how it all pieces together
Saw III (2006)
Killer's Sadistic Games
Third of the Saw films and the point where director Darren Lynn Bousman places the series’ focus on grim gore-drenched sadism and torture
Saw II (2005)
Killer's Sadistic Games
The first sequel to the sleeper success of Saw where Darren Lynn Bousman inherits the director’s chair but delivers a film that lacks the torturous suspense that James Wan gave the original
Rupture (2016)
Woman Abducted Into a Series of Mysterious Experiments
Puzzling and enigmatic film in which Noomi Rapace is a regular mom who is abducted and forced to take place in a series of experiments by a group of people who may not even be human
Rogue River (2012)
Imprisonment Thriller
Imprisonment thriller where a woman finds herself confined by deranged husband and wife Bill Moseley and Lucinda Jenney
The Retreat (2021)
Backwoods Brutality
The Backwoods Brutality film given an LGBT spin where a lesbian couple run afoul of backwoods rednecks
Recovery (2016)
Search for a Missing Cellphone Leads to a Sinister House
A film that starts with the premise of teenage girls looking for a party and then going in search of a missing cellphone doesn’t do much to enthuse me. On the other hand, things pick up when the search leads them to a strange house
1BR (2019)
Sinister Apartment Complex
A girl moves into a new and welcoming apartment complex only to be imprisoned and tortured by her neighbours into following the code of moral precepts by which they live
All Hallows’ Eve (2013)
Horror Anthology
From the director of the Terrifier films, a horror anthology in which a babysitter and kids sit down to watch a mysterious videotape on Halloween night. The first screen appearance of Art the Clown
Zinda (2006)
Imprisonment and Revenge
A blatant Bollywood copy of Oldboy, often scene-for-scene
Escape the Field (2022)
People Trapped in an Endless Cornfield
This comes with a near-identical premise to the Stephen King adaptation In the Tall Grass where a group of people are trapped in an endless cornfield
Bloody Hell (2020)
Imprisonment By a Strange Family
Oddball Australian Backwoods Brutality film with a man imprisoned by a strange family in Finland who intend to feed him to their hulking son
The Follower (2016)
Singer Imprisoned by a Psycho Fan
A blatant copy of Misery where Erika Christensen is a popular singer who is abducted and made a prisoner by deranged fan Bethany Lauren James who wants her to write more songs in the style she used to
Books of Blood (2020)
Clive Barker Anthology
A new Clive Barker film is always something to be excited about – Barker has been absent too long as a creative force. This is an anthology based around Barker’s celebrated story collection
Bullet Head (2017)
Killer Dog
A film with a great set-up where three criminals on the run (which include Adrien Brody and John Malkovich) take refuge in a warehouse only to find they are trapped with a maddened killer dog
Buried Alive (1990)
Burial Alive and Revenge Scheme
The directorial debut from Frank Darabont who went on to make The Shawshank Redemption and The Mist. A wife and her lover plot to kill husband off by poisoning him only for him to survive and plot an elaborate revenge scheme
Flashburn (2017)
Amnesiac Scientist Imprisoned/Reality Bender
Reality bending film where an amnesiac Sean Patrick Flanery wakes up in a warehouse and learns he is a scientist who holds the antidote to a pandemic. But all is not it seems.
Cannibal Comedian (2023)
Cannibal Stand-Up Comedian
A film that fairly much sells you in its deliberately ridiculous title concept – a cannibal who sets out to find success as a stand-up comedian.
Cassadaga (2011)
Medium Tracks Serial Killer
Director Anthony DiBlasi has become a rising name in the horror genre in recent years. Here he makes a film about a deaf woman who gains mediumistic abilities and her tracking a serial killer who turns his victims into living marionettes
No Escape Room (2018)
Haunted Escape Room
Another in the fad for horror films about escape rooms we have had in the last few years, this concerns a possibly haunted venue and reaches an interestingly odd ending
Escape Room: Tournament of Champions (2021)
Escape Room of Death Traps
Sequel to the 2019 Escape Room. This repeats everything that its predecessor did but bigger and more elaborate to the point that basic believability goes out the window
The Collector (2009)
Sadism and Torture
A directorial debut from one of the writers of the Saw sequels, a Torture Porn film that has a highly unusual set-up about a burglar stumbling into a family home that has been turned into a death trap by a serial killer
Escape Room (2017)
Escape Room of Death Traps
This was debatably the first of three films that came out around the same time with the same title. Here a group find themselves in an escape room facing nasty deaths in each room
Escape Room (2017)
Group Trapped in an Escape Room with a Demonic Force
One of at least three identically titled films coming out around the same time based around the popularity of escape rooms. This has a group trapped in a room with an unleashed demonic force
Don’t Worry Darling (2022)
Sinister Utopian Town
Actress Olivia Wilde creates a variant on The Stepford Wives set in an idyllic 1950s town where the women seem to be prisoners. Wilde is making a feminist parable but the plausibility of her SF scenario falls apart
Don’t Breathe (2016)
House Breakers Stalked by a Blind Man
This, which is sort of The People Under the Stairs by way of Wait Until Dark, was greeted with terms like ‘an instant classic’. It is a well-oiled machine that produces some undeniable jumps but little remains in memory after it is over
Cell Count (2012)
Medical Experiment/Bizarre Meltdowns
People are locked in a facility and undergoing biological meltdowns. A film that is driven by a series of wild effects at regular intervals but falls down when it comes to its poorly constructed mystery
The Cleaning Lady (2018)
Psycho Cleaning Lady
Director Jon Knautz and actress Alexis Kendra made the quite impressive Goddess of Love and reteam for this film where Alexis befriends the disturbed, disfigured cleaning lady of the title
Dark Cloud (2022)
Trapped by an A.I. House
SF film about a woman suffering amnesia who is sent to an automated house to recuperate only to be made prisoner by the sinister A.I. that runs the house
Curve (2015)
Trapped in an Overturned SUV, Taunted By a Psycho
Another variant on the containment thriller a la Buried, this has Julianne Hough trapped at the bottom of a cliff in an overturned SUV while being taunted by a serial killer
The Clinic (2010)
Pregnant Woman Forced to Fight to Death
This Australian thriller has a captivating premise – pregnant women are abducted, C-sectioned and imprisoned where they must fight to the death to get their children back
Blind Alley (2011)
Woman Trapped in a Laundromat by a Stalker
This borrows its set-up from Phone Booth with Ana da Armas barricaded into a laundromat from a taunting killer outside. You think that is where everything is going but then the film pulls a left field twist on us
Blank (2022)
Imprisoned by an A.I. House
A film about a writer who retreats to a fully automated smarthome in order to complete a novel only to end up imprisoned by a malfunctioning A.I.
Cube (2021)
Mysterious Labyrinth
Japanese remake of the Vincenzo Natali film where a group of people wake up in mysterious labyrinth of identical cubed rooms filled with death traps
Alone (2020)
Survival Thriller/Woman Flees an Attacker
Survival thriller in which a woman is abducted by a man but affects an escape where she must then make a harrowing run through the woods while pursued by him
Mumsy, Nanny, Sonny & Girly (1969)
Grown-Ups Play Deadly Children's Games
Freddie Francis was one of the key players of the 1960s/70s Anglo-horror cycle – he always claimed that this was his favourite film, although it has seen little distribution. The film consists of an annoyingly giggly scenes of adults running around playing children’s games
The Maddening (1995)
Imprisonment Thriller
Rather trashy thriller in which Mia Sara is imprisoned by backwoods couple Burt Reynolds and Angie Dickinson
Locked (2025)
Man Trapped Inside an SUV
A thriller in which Bill Skarsgård is a petty thief who break into a SUV only to become trapped inside and psychologically tormented by the vehicle’s owner Anthony Hopkins
Little Bone Lodge (2023)
Home Invasion/House of Secrets
A thriller in which two brothers fleeing police take refuge at a farmhouse where it becomes increasingly apparent that there are secrets and sinister goings-on
The Last House (2026)
Trapped Inside a House
A real head-scratcher where all of humanity suddenly find that they are trapped inside their houses and cannot get out. While outside there lurk sea monsters!
Kill Theory (2009)
People Imprisoned in an Elimination Game
This has clearly been conceived as Saw by way of Big Brother in which a group of teens are imprisoned in a house and forced to eliminate one another until only one remains
Jigsaw (2017)
Saw Sequel
Whether we asked for it or not, this is a revival of the Saw series. The upside is that unlike the other sequels it comes from a duo of directors who have made some quite good films elsewhere
ATM (2012)
Three People Trapped in an ATM Booth by a Psycho
Thriller from the screenwriter of Buried that seeks to imitate that film’s containment drama in having three characters trapped inside an ATM booth by a killer outside
Glass House: The Good Mother (2006)
Evil Foster Parents Psycho-Thriller
A sequel to The Glass House, this time with different cast or orphaned kids and different evil step-parents. This has the bland feel of a tv movie
The Housemaid (2025)
Psycho-Thriller
An airport psycho-thriller that feels like wannabe Gillian Flynn that has been mounted as a vehicle for the talent-handicapped Sydney Sweeney. The whole plot hangs on a believability stretching mid-film twist revelation
Awaiting (2015)
British Backwoods Brutality
This is the British equivalent of a Backwoods Brutality film in which Tony Curran is a towtruck driver who traps and kills motorists to salvage their belongings
The House of the Dead (1978)
Horror Anthology
Not to be confused with the Uwe Boll videogame adaptation, this is an obscure but not entirely uninteresting horror anthology from the 1970s that tells several tales set around a funeral parlour
Hounds of Love (2016)
Couple Abduct and Imprison a Teenage Girl
Australian film about a couple that abduct and imprison a teenage girl. This received some very good notices in theatrical release but as a horror film, it soft pedals and seems to avoid most of its horror element
Hollow Creek (2016)
Abducted Woman Thriller
Although effort is made to sell this as a horror film and there are some ghosts, this is far more of a missing woman thriller. A directing/writing debut for Guisela Moro who plays the abducted woman
Bane (2008)
Abducted Into Mysterious Experiments
Four girls come around imprisoned in a mysterious facility with amnesia to find they are being subject to mysterious experiments. Not to be confused with the DC Comics super-villain
The Hole (2001)
Imprisonment and Subjective Truth Psycho-Thriller
British psycho-thriller about teenagers trapped inside a bunker. This does an interesting mid-film twist to offer an entirely different version of the story but never rises above the middle-of-the-road
Held (2020)
Married Couple Imprisoned in a House
A bizarre thriller where a husband and wife are imprisoned in a luxury house and forced upon threat of torture to improve their marriage
The Beast in the Cellar (1970)
Deformed Family Secrets
Variant on the Mad Relative Locked in the Attic/Cellar film made as part of the British horror cycle. Unfortunately, this plods where it should have developed tension
Live Animals (2008)
Imprisonment and Torture
A film made not long after the advent of the Torture Porn fad in which a group of friends are imprisoned on a farm to be broken and sold into slavery
Repentance (2014)
Imprisonment Thriller
A film with identity disorder – the title and promotion makes it seem a revenge-action film only for it to conduct a number of strange doglegs and eventually arrive at a plot wherein life coach Anthony Mackie is tied up in the cellar by Forest Whitaker who feeds his inspirational lines back at him
Captivity (2007)
Imprisonment Thriller
Blatant Saw copy from Roland Joffe, a director better known for his arthouse works, from a script by cult director Larry Cohen. This starts stylishly before collapsing in a series of ridiculous twists
Chop (2011)
Sadism and Torture Comedy
A man is abducted by a stranger who proceeds to remove his limbs in an effort to make him remember the terrible crime he committed. This suggests an incredibly grim film. Surprisingly enough, it is a comedy
Ascendant (2021)
Girl Trapped in an Elevator
A variant on Buried, which had Ryan Reynolds trapped in a coffin for the duration, featuring a girl trapped in an elevator as it conducts high-speed rises and drops, all before a bizarre left field SF ending
The Collection (2012)
Sadism and Torture
Disappointing sequel to the Torture Porn film The Collector. The captivating premise of an ordinary house turned into a series of deadly traps is gone, while the sadistic, gore-drenched set-pieces are tame and unimaginative
Vile (2011)
Sadism and Torture
I’m tempted to make a comment about this being a film that offers its own critical summary in its title but this Saw wannabe is so tame it fails even that. Hard to believe a film with a premise about a group of people forced to torture one another could emerge so dramatically uninteresting
Oldboy (2013)
Imprisonment and Revenge
Spike Lee’s English-language remake of Oldboy is an abortion. Where Park Chan-Wook directed the original with an insane energy, whereas Lee only delivers a formula action film and fumbles the ending
Cube Zero (2004)
Mysterious Labyrinth
This was the third of the Cube films but has nothing new to add to the mix except a focus on the technicians monitoring the operation and the addition of gore effects
The Gauntlet (2013)
Labyrinth/Elimination Game
Film with people trapped in a mysterious labyrinth, which may be Hell, where they are required to eliminate one another in order to survive. Aka Game of Assassins
The Human Centipede 3 (Final Sequence) (2015)
Prison Warden Surgically Connects Prisoners' Bodies
The first two Human Centipede films are masterpieces of twisted extremes. The third entry goes astray in giving the show over to Dieter Laser in one of the most over-the-top performances ever unleashed
The House of Usher (1989)
Modernised Edgar Allan Poe Adaptation
This makes an interesting attempt to tell a modern-day version of the Edgar Allan Poe story but the film’s emphasis on cheap shock effects is a far cry from Poe’s masterful mood of despair and desolation
Please Don’t Feed the Children (2024)
Imprisonment Thriller/Zombie Film
Steven Spielberg’s daughter Destry makes her directorial debut with a confused mix of an imprisonment thriller and a zombie film, albeit a zombie film that only produces a single zombie
Headgame (2018)
Deadly Elimination Game
This feels like one of the numerous copies of Saw with eight people locked in a warehouse with video cameras implanted in their foreheads and told to that only one of them can leave alive
The Girl in the Trunk (2024)
Girl Imprisoned in a Car Trunk
A thriller that comes with an identical premise to the earlier Trunk about a girl who is abducted and locked inside the trunk of a car from where she tries to affect an escape from her abductor