Chained

★★★

(2012)

Jennifer Chambers Lynch third film since 2008's Surveillance is a mixed bag; Serial killer tension and a somewhat unique take on the battering genre staple of "torture porn" are strong points throughout but the infuriating finale and some messy and obvious plot devices drag stop Chained from ever being truly intriguing. A young boy (Evan Bird) and his mother (Julia Ormond) emerge from a violent horror film at a small town cinema into the broad day light and hop into a taxi. The driver Bob (Vincent D’Onofrio) takes them off to his farm-house. The mother is killed and the boy is held by Bob as his home help, his assistant to the endless grizzly murdering of college girls.

It's an intense premise one which often echoes last years exceptional Michael in theme only. Chained is far more by the book, mood lighting and a stark set are reminiscent of the paint by numbers horror films of Eli Roth and James Wan. Unlike those directors, Lynch admirably keeps much of the violence off-screen, highlighting two fantastic performances by D'Onofrio and Eamon Farren who is now the older captive boy renamed "Rabbit". Lynch's reluctance in the press to call this a horror film is understood. It isn't really.

Chained is concerned with upbringing, with nurture vs nature and with deprivation, its flushed with an oddness which has tinted Lynch's work since her staggering debut Boxing Helena. The darkness of her father (Mr David Lynch's) work could be an easy cornerstone for any critique of the film but Miss Lynch's work is void of the power of her fathers "daylight horror", presenting a wandering wide-angle look at the interiors of Bob's house and his basement.

Rabbit's routine and the odd tenderness that Bob shows towards his "son" are of course linked to Bob's own abusive childhood and as the film lunges towards its end the tension and depth of the performance is all but gone. Although Chained is certainly a tense and disturbing watch, it languishes in the trappings of the more mainstream killer films which rely on final reel twists and ambiguous endings, ultimately cheapening a well made and well performed claustrophobic piece of work.