The Exterminating Angel (1962)
Surrealism
An acclaimed surrealistic film from Luis Buñuel in which a group of people attend an upper-class dinner party but then find themselves inexplicably unable to leave the room
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
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
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
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
It’s Alive! (1969)
Backwoods Sadist/Prehistoric Creature
Larry Buchanan is a director on a par with Edward D. Wood Jr. This, not to be confused with the 1974 killer baby film, is his best film. Buchanan creates a perverse obsessiveness that is fascinating to watch
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
The Beguiled (1971)
Southern Gothic
Underrated work of Southern Gothic with Clint Eastwood as a wounded soldier sheltered at a Confederate girl’s school during the Civil War where he succeeds in manipulating the sexual tensions of the teachers and schoolgirls to his advantage
House of Whipcord (1974)
Imprisonment and Torture
The best film from UK director Pete Walker. All of Walker’s film have a horror of ingrained institutionalism. This, concerning a private prison where morally lax women are abducted and tortured, is depicted with an extraordinary cruelty
Demon Seed (1977)
Computer Wants to Have Sex
Adaptation of an early Dean R. Koontz novel about an A.I who imprisons a woman in her own home with the intention of impregnating her. A variant on Rosemary’s Baby conducted far more tastefully than you might think
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
Beautiful Teacher in Torture Hell (1985)
BDSM Erotica/Imprisonment
An imprisonment thriller with a difference, a work of Japanese BDSM erotica where a young teacher is imprisoned and erotically tortured. Quite out there and different to anything Western erotica turns out
The Devil’s Honey (1986)
Erotic Thriller/Torture and Imprisonment
Cult Italian director Lucio Fulci makes an erotic thriller but fails to leave his horror background behind with deranged results quite unlike any other erotic film
Flowers in the Attic (1987)
Twisted Family Melodrama
Film adaptation of Virginia C. Andrews’ popular Gothic potboiler about a brother and sister who develop an incestuous relationship after being locked in the attic by their mother. Andrews’ turgid melodrama gets the screen adaptation it deserves
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
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
Singapore Sling (1990)
Torture and Perverse Goings-On
Completely demented Greek film about a mother and daughter imprisoning and torturing people in a big old house
Misery (1990)
Writer Imprisoned by a Psycho Fan/Stephen King Adaptation
A classic Stephen King adaptation from Rob Reiner with writer James Caan imprisoned by psycho fan Kathy Bates, who gives a terrifying performance that won her an Academy Award
Scissors (1991)
Imprisonment Psycho-Thriller
Impressive psycho-thriller from Frank De Felitta that plays out with the silent logic of a nightmare as a young unknown Sharon Stone finds herself a prisoner in an apartment
The People Under the Stairs (1991)
Children Imprisoned in the Basement
Wes Craven in which a young thief breaks into a home where a crazed couple imprison children and have turned the house into a series of deathtraps
Boxing Helena (1993)
Sexual Obsession and Amputation
David Lynch’s daughter Jennifer directs a film about a surgeon who abducts a woman and amputates her limbs to make her love him. A critical bomb, it is a not uninteresting work about woman’s desire handled with more taste than you would think
The Maddening (1995)
Imprisonment Thriller
Rather trashy thriller in which Mia Sara is imprisoned by backwoods couple Burt Reynolds and Angie Dickinson
Cube (1997)
Mysterious Labyrinth
An excellent conceptual SF film, a directorial debut for Vincenzo Natali with six people trapped in a labyrinth of identical rooms some of which contain death traps where they must solve the puzzle to find the way out
Paranoid (2000)
Imprisonment Psycho-Thriller
Psycho-thriller in which Jessica Alba finds herself drugged and then held a captive prisoner by Iain Glen
Bad Guy (2001)
Sexual Humiliation and Degradation
Kim Ki-Duk film about the strangely tender relationship that grows between a mute thug and a woman he forces into prostitution
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
The Glass House (2001)
Evil Foster Parents Psycho-Thriller
A modest and reasonably effective psycho-thriller about a brother and sister who are adopted after the death of their parents only to find their step-parents have sinister intent
Cube2: Hypercube (2002)
Mysterious Hyper-Dimensional Labyrinth
The first sequel to Vincenzo Natali’s fine conceptual puzzlebox film. This expands out on the idea, having a cube that bends through time and space, and has a certain fascination if not as much as the original did
Phone Booth (2002)
Man Trapped in a Phone Booth by a Psycho Sniper
Sharp and original script from Larry Cohen in which Colin Farrell is trapped inside a phone booth by a sniper. Good story that even the awful Joel Schumacher in the director’s seat doesn’t screw up too badly
Perfect Strangers (2003)
Abduction Thriller/Ambiguous Ghost
Very strange New Zealand-made film that starts out seeming to be an abduction thriller and then turns into an even stranger ghost story that we cannot be sure is happening or all in the heroine’s imagination
Save the Green Planet (2003)
Man Imprisoned By Someone Who Insists He is an Alien
A bizarre South Korean comedy about a businessman who is imprisoned by a possibly crazed man who insists that he is an alien. Things sit in an absurdly funny ambiguity. Later remade by Yorgos Lanthimos as Bugonia
Oldboy (2003)
Imprisonment and Revenge
Electrifyingly ultra-violent film from Park Chan-wook who ably borrows from Takashi Miike. The film equally becomes a conceptual twister as the protagonist is forced to go on a reality-bending quest through his own life.
The Ordeal (2004)
Backwoods Brutality
A Belgian-made venture into Backwoods Brutality territory that keeps heading into stranger and more disturbing places until it almost seems to be taking place on another planet altogether
Saw (2004)
Killer's Sadistic Games
Forget the grim and sadistic sequels that followed, this low-budget directorial debut from James Wan is a masterwork that conjures unbearable dread and tension in its study of characters forced to consider the horribly inconceivable
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
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
Death Tunnel (2005)
Haunted Abandoned Hospital
Horror film set in the haunted tunnels beneath an abandoned hospital that seems all horror posturing without the benefit of an actual plot
Marian, Again (2005)
Missing Woman Psycho-Thriller
Strong and effective UK tv thriller where Stephen Tompkinson becomes obsessed with the girlfriend who went missing years earlier after he thinks he sees her again
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
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
Zinda (2006)
Imprisonment and Revenge
A blatant Bollywood copy of Oldboy, often scene-for-scene
Broken (2006)
Abduction and Torture
Highly effective British venture into the Torture Porn fad made not long after the successes of Saw and Hostel. A brutal and harrowing tale about women kept prisoner in the woods that travels to some grim and gore-drenched extremes
P2 (2007)
Imprisonment Psycho-Thriller
Tense and twist-filled thriller with Rachel Nichols trapped inside a carpark building by a psychopathic Wes Bentley
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
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
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
Black Water (2007)
Killer Crocodile
Although overshadowed by the same year’s Rogue, this is another Australian killer crocodile film that racks up a remarkable degree of raw, seat-gouging tension in managing to confine its cast of three to a tree for the duration
Saw IV (2007)
Killer's Sadistic Games
Fourth of the Saw films, the third under Darren Lynn Bousman who has placed an increasing emphasis on torturous extremes at the expense of credible plotting
Mum & Dad (2008)
Imprisonment By a Perverse Family
Brutal and harrowing British drama that locates a Texas Chain Saw Massacre-type show in an urban setting, featuring a couple known as Mum and Dad who maintain a family of imprisoned captives. This delves down into a genuinely disturbed headspace in some of the performances
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
100 Feet (2008)
Woman Confined on Home Detention in a Haunted Apartment
This lifts the premise of Disturbia – protagonist confined to home detention who spies a killer next door – but then asks what would happen if the space they were confined was haunted
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
Farmhouse (2008)
Sinister Farmhouse/Torture Porn
A film about a couple who break down on a country road and seek help at a sinister farmhouse, before everything turns into Torture Porn territory. And then things get weird
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
Martyrs (2008)
Imprisonment and Torture
Pascal Laugier makes one of the most horrific films to emerge from France in the 00s. Scenes of grim torture sit alongside a plot that messes with almost everything we take for granted
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
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
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
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
Exam (2009)
Torturous Existential Job Interview
An existential puzzlebox of a film where a group of job interviewees are locked in a room and asked to work out what the question is. A fascinating conceptual film that falls somewhere between Cube and Saw
The Loved Ones (2009)
Australian Psycho Prom Date Black Comedy
Australian black comedy about a guy imprisoned to be a girl’s perfect prom date. The film takes to horror with enthusiasm and is owned by two fantastic performances from the women of the show
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
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
The Human Centipede (First Sequence) (2009)
Mad Surgeon Connects Human Bodies
An astonishingly perverse work where a mad surgeon abducts three people intending to connect their bodies as a single digestive tract. This is a work that pushes itself into truly warped territory
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.
Iron Doors (2010)
Imprisonment Thriller/Labyrinth Film
A modest German-made film not dissimilar to Cube in which a man wakes up inside a labyrinth of locked rooms and must find a means of escape
Frozen (2010)
Trapped on a Ski Chairlift
Not to be confused with the Disney animated film, this is a harrowing survival drama from Adam Green about three characters trapped in mid-air on a ski chairlift
Bitter Feast (2010)
Celebrity Chef Imprisons a Food Critic
An appealingly nasty little film where a celebrity chef imprisons and tortures a scathing food critic. Produced by Larry Fessenden.
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
Burning Bright (2010)
Trapped Inside a House with a Tiger
Film about a girl and her autistic brother trapped inside a house with a tiger, this proves an unexpectedly really good. It avoids the cliches of the Animals Amok genre and derives superb hair-raising tension from the set-up
Saw 3D (2010)
Killer's Sadistic Games
Supposedly the final chapter of the Saw saga – where the sole novelty on offer is gore and body parts coming out the screen in 3D. This is conducted with a tired lack of effort that makes for tedium-inducing watching
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
Buried (2010)
Man Buried in a Coffin
A thriller with Ryan Reynolds buried in a coffin where the camera remains inside with him for the entire running time. This must be commended for its rigour in generating suspense while never cheating on its idea
Territories (2010)
Rogue Border Guards Torture Tourists
An appealingly politicised variant on the Backwoods Brutality film in which two rogue US border guards decide to set up their own home Guantanamo Bay … not Torture Porn but an effectively brutal study on the effect of torture
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
The Woman (2011)
Uncivilised Wild Woman/Sadism and Brutality
Lucky McKee’s highly controversial film about a family man who makes a feral woman prisoner is out-there, takes-no-prisoners horror. Forget the kneejerk reactions, this is brutal, highly original and with a whiplash sense of dark humour
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
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
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
The Skin I Live In (2011)
Mad Surgeon and His Woman Prisoner
Pedro Almodovar’s exquisitely lush homage to the mad surgeon fiilm Eyes Without a Face features a superb left field twist to become an extraordinary meditation on gender and identity
Michael (2011)
Paedophile and His Child Prisoner
Chilling portrait of a paedophile and the young boy he keeps locked in his cellar. The entire film is an astonishing exercise in calm and mannered understatement
The Divide (2011)
Survivors of a Nuclear Holocaust in a Cellar
Tough and brutal depiction of the collapse of civilised order among a group of survivors of a nuclear holocaust holed up in a cellar. This holds an incredibly bleak depiction of human nature
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
The Human Centipede II (Full Sequence) (2011)
Madman Surgically Connects Human Bodies
Sequel to the original that pushes into even more perverse territory. This throws some amusing spins on the original, creating a unique protagonist, while also contriving to exist inside an extremely disturbed headspace
Chained (2012)
Serial Killer and His Young Companion
Jennifer Lynch, daughter of David, makes an extraordinary work about the relationship between a serial killer and his young male companion. A film that eschews big dramatics with startling effect. Vincent D’Onofrio gives one of his best performances
Rogue River (2012)
Imprisonment Thriller
Imprisonment thriller where a woman finds herself confined by deranged husband and wife Bill Moseley and Lucinda Jenney
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 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
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
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 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
The Factory (2012)
Serial Killer Thriller
A Dark Horse Entertainment film that traipses through a tired serial killer plot that comes out resembling a weak episode of CSI before a frankly unbelievable twist ending
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
Raze (2013)
Abducted Girls Forced to Fight to the Death
Fifty girls have been abducted and are paired off and forced to fight to the death with their bare hands in an arena – essentially Saw by way of Girlfight. A tautly streamlined and grittily effective effort that succeeds modestly well at everything it sets out to do
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
Beneath (2013)
Teens Trapped in a Sinking Boat by a Giant Fish
Larry Fessenden makes what seems a formula teens in peril film. Once he gets his cast stranded in a sinking boat menaced by a giant fish and debating who to throw overboard, he develops some remarkably brutal tensions
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
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
The Womb (2014)
Pregnant Woman Held Prisoner
The first occasion I have had to review a horror film from Peru – a thriller about a young woman imprisoned and forced to bear a child. This is never a work that particularly reinvents the wheel, just turns out a solid and suspenseful imprisonment thriller
Amnesiac (2014)
Imprisonment Thriller
Michael Polish is one of the underrated American directors. Here an amnesiac Wes Bentley wakes up a prisoner of a wonderfully chilling Kate Bosworth who insists that she is his wife
Goodnight Mommy (2014)
Boys Believe Their Mother Has Been Replaced
Effective and disturbing work about two boys who begin to think that someone else might have taken their mother’s place after she returns in bandages. The film reaches a particularly chill and nasty climax