Review of Chained (2012)

Hello all! I hope everyone's ready for this one! Today I'll be reviewing "Chained," a psychological thriller/slasher film directed by Jennifer Lynch.

"Chained" is about a deranged serial killer who wants to rekindle the bond of a father-son relationship with the son of one of his victims. The movie follows the relationship that develops after years of the boy being forcibly kept in the serial killer's house.

Pros:
1. The entire abduction scene was super intense. The serial killer works as a taxi can driver. When the mother and her son get in his cab, you can only imagine where they're headed. He drives them to a rural and desolate area, where you know they can't get help. Then, while the child is still in the car, the killer takes the mother to a separate room and kills her. The entire scene is fairly quick, but will stick with me forever. The authenticity and intensity of the scene was just scary. It's the closest thing I could think of to actually taping a kidnapping and murder.

2. The killer's house is a character of its own. From the blood-stained walls that looked like they haven't been washed, to the creepily bare rooms that make it look abandoned (or condemned), this house was creepy as hell, and made me super uncomfortable.

Cons:

1. Okay guys, here's where things get interesting. I thought that this was going to be a movie demonstrating Stockholm syndrome, where a person is mentally, physically, and emotionally abused by a person (killer or not) and ends up getting attached to them. In a sense, that's what this movie was about. BUT, as intense as that sounds, it was not intense at all. In fact, it was the most mild case of brainwashing I've ever heard of. There is little to no actual abuse, and Rabbit (the victim) talks back to the killer and disobeys him regularly. The film makes the relationship feel more like an actual father-and-son relationship than one between a serial killer and his victim, and that was a huge strike for me.

2. Both main characters, the serial killer Bob (Vincent D'Orofino) and Rabbit (Eamon Farren) were too mild for me to believe they were such dramatic characters. D'Orofino acted too lenient and too nice to be a killer and Farren acted too normal to be the victim of years of abuse. Strike two.

3. At one point in the movie, a teenage Rabbit establishes a relationship with one of Bob's victims. He hides her from Bob and tries to help her escape. The problem is that the relationship was so ridiculous. He was forced into a room with her where Bob expected him to kill and rape her. Instead, they just talked and the girl basically begs him to have sex with her. First she was scared for her life, then she was clinging to the guy who's supposed to kill her for dear life and trying to kiss him. It was a short lived and unnecessary plot point that made the movie even worse for me. That was officially strike three.

4. And last but not least, a bonus con! They went WAY too much into the killer's past and what made him a psycho. I don't want to know what makes psycho killers how they are; I just want to see a psycho killer go crazy on people! You don't ask why Michael Meyers kills babysitters in "Halloween." You just take it for what it is: a creepy psycho who kills people for no reason. Motive equals fewer scares and a serious drop in creepiness. So, strike four.

No offense to anyone involved in the movie, but this one was just bad. I was super disappointed because it had such potential to be so amazing and dramatic, and it fell way, way short. Two stars for you, Jennifer Lynch!